Sinopsis

Bestselling author Charles Todd has earned a special place among mystery's elite writers with his acclaimed series featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, a former soldier seeking to lay to rest the demons of his past in the aftermath of World War I. But that past bleeds into the present in a complex murder case that calls into question his own honor...and the crimes committed in the name of God, country, and righteous vengeance.

A Fearsome Doubt

In 1912 Ian Rutledge watched as a man was condemned to hang for the murders of elderly women. Rutledge helped gather the evidence that sent Ben Shaw to the gallows. And when justice was done, Rutledge closed the door on the case. But Shaw was not easily forgotten.

Now, seven years later, that grim trial returns in the form of Ben Shaw's widow Nell, bringing Rutledge evidence she is convinced will prove her husband's innocence. It's a belief fraught with peril, threatening both Rutledge's professional stature and his faith in his judgment. But there is a darker reason for Rutledge's reluctance. Murder brings him back to Kent where, days earlier, he'd glimpsed an all-too-familiar face beyond the leaping flames of a bonfire. Soon an unexpected encounter revives the end of his own war, as the country prepares for a somber commemoration on the anniversary of the Armistice. To battle the unsettled past and the haunted present at the same time is an appalling mandate.

And the people around him? among them the attractive widow of a friend, a remarkable woman who survived the Great Indian Mutiny; a bitter, dying barrister; and a man whose name he never knew-unwittingly compete with the grieving Nell Shaw. They'll demand more than Rutledge can give, unaware that he is already carrying the burden of shell shock? and the voice of Hamish MacLeod, the soldier he was forced to execute in the war. The killer in Marling is surprisingly adept at escaping detection. And Ben Shaw's past is a tangle of unsettling secrets that may or may not be true. Rutledge must walk a tortuous line between two murderers...one reaching out to ruin him, the other driven to destroy him.

From the Hardcover edition.

Charles Todd is the author of Watchers of Time, Legacy of the Dead, A Test of Wills, Wings of Fire, and Search the Dark. He lives on the East Coast, where he is at work on the next novel in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, A Cold Treachery.

From the Hardcover edition.

Praise for the novels of Charles Todd

Watchers of Time
"One of the best historical series being written today...in the grand tradition of English murder mysteries."
-*The Washington Post Book World

"With his tortured detective Ian Rutledge and the ghost who inhabits his mind-Charles Todd has swiftly become one of the most respected writers in the mystery genre...The pair is unique among sleuths."
-The Denver Post

*Legacy of the Dead

*A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Readers will continue to be captivated by Todd's portrait of the dangerously unraveling detective, and his equally incisive evocation of the grieving postwar world."
-Publishers Weekly

*Search the Dark

"Todd's Ian Rutledge mysteries are among the most intelligent and affecting being written these days."
-*The Washington Post Book World

*Wings of Fire

*A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Truly captivating."
-The Drood Review of Mystery

"Rich and beautifully nuanced."
-Library Journal

*A Test of Wills

*A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"A first novel that speaks out, urgently and compassionately, for a long-dead generation...A meticulously wrought puzzle and a harrowing psychological drama."
-The New York Times Book Review

"More than an ordinary whodunit, this literate thriller raises disturbing issues of war and peace."
-The San Diego Union-Tribune

From the Hardcover edition.