Wednesday, October 21, 2009

115. Wings of Fire

BY:  Charles Todd
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Library

I am reading this series all out of order but I don't think it makes the slightest bit of difference since there is no back story running through any of them.  Each one is pretty much a total stand alone.  I love this series.  It is so well done and the period is probably my favorite one to read about in all of history.


PUBLISHERS DESCRIPTION:
Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is dispatched to Cornwall to investigate three deaths?seemingly a double-suicide and an accident?that have occurred within weeks in the Trevelyan family. Still recovering from shell shock sustained while serving in France during WWI, Rutledge carries in his head the challenging voice of Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish soldier about whose battlefront death Rutledge experiences profound guilt. In the village of Borcombe, Rutledge learns that one of the apparent suicides, Olivia Marlowe, wrote as O.A. Manning, a poet whose work had uncannily captured both the misery of war and the passion and beauty of love. Olivia Marlowe and her devoted half-brother Nicholas Cheney died of poisoning within hours of each other. Another half-brother, Stephen FitzHugh, the only family member opposed to selling the family estate where Olivia and Nicholas lived, fell down the stairs to his death not long after the funeral. Searching for answers about the deaths and for an understanding of the poet, Rutledge finds himself on a decades-long trail of cleverly disguised murders. Todd's cast is sometimes hard to keep straight, but readers will find it hard to resist following Rutledge on this emotionally intense quest. Memorable characters, subtle plot twists, the evocative seaside setting and descriptions of architecture, the moors and the sea fully reward the attention this novel commands.

2 comments:

Beachreader said...

I am going to start this series as well, Jeanette. I have his /their new book (the beginning of a new series)and am really looking forward to reading it. I love my job but boy working does do a number as far as taking my reading time away.

Unknown said...

I think you will enjoy it Maudeen. The books are a little out of the ordinary which makes a refreshing change.