{"id":2413,"date":"2009-02-24T06:00:23","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2009-02-23T00:00:29","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T06:00:29","slug":"a-matter-of-justice-by-charles-todd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/a-matter-of-justice-by-charles-todd\/","title":{"rendered":"A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/216.125.140.44\/uhtbin\/cgisirsi\/x\/0\/0\/57\/5?searchdata1=ocn219569290&amp;user_id=davmainweb  \" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"184\" height=\"280\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2454 alignleft\" title=\"matter-of-justice\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/matter-of-justice.jpg?resize=184%2C280&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"matter-of-justice\" \/><\/a>This is the 11th in the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery series, but the first one I&#8217;ve read.\u00a0 As a historical mystery, it makes for an interesting genre, but what I found even more intriguing was that the author, Charles Todd, is a pseudonym for a mother-son team who don&#8217;t even live in the same state!\u00a0 Even in this high-tech world, I still marvel at that kind of skill, but for now, let&#8217;s focus on the story.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/216.125.140.44\/uhtbin\/cgisirsi\/x\/0\/0\/57\/5?searchdata1=ocn219569290&amp;user_id=davmainweb  \" target=\"_blank\">A Matter of Justice<\/a><\/strong><\/em> takes place in 1920&#8217;s England, and the main character, Rutledge, is an inspector for Scotland Yard.\u00a0 He is called to the rural village of Somerset to investigate the brutal murder of a successful London financier, Harold Quarles.\u00a0 There are no shortages of suspects, as many of the villagers openly admit to totally despising the man.\u00a0 Even Quarles&#8217; wife and the town&#8217;s police officer are under suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>In what turns out to be a very effective technique, the reader is clued in to the real killer early on, and as the pages kept turning, I began to fear that Rutledge would arrest the wrong person or never literally bring the &#8220;matter to justice.&#8221;\u00a0 Another useful ploy was the voice of Hamish in Rutledge&#8217;s head.\u00a0 Hamish,\u00a0 a soldier who died under Rutledge&#8217;s command in the trenches of WWI,\u00a0 serves as a sort of guilty conscience for the inspector. This contributes greatly to making him a fully human character and not just some singular sleuth.\u00a0 Though some will find this similar to an Agatha Christie mystery, I found it refreshingly superior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the 11th in the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery series, but the first one I&#8217;ve read.\u00a0 As a historical mystery, it makes for an interesting genre, but what I found even more intriguing was that the author, Charles Todd, is a pseudonym for a mother-son team who don&#8217;t even<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/a-matter-of-justice-by-charles-todd\/\">[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[80,460,268,333,461,459],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-staff-picks","tag-england","tag-london-somerset","tag-murder","tag-mystery","tag-scotland-yard","tag-wwi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-CV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2494,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}