A post-traumatic test of wills

What today is termed post-traumatic stress disorder was called battle fatigue in World War II and shell shock during and after World War I. Whatever the term, the condition affects those, not necessarily soldiers, who have witnessed more stress or horror than they can cope with emotionally.

Since 1996, Charles Todd (actually the mother and son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd) has been producing a successful series of British mysteries featuring Ian Rutledge, a Scotland Yard inspector with a serious, if well-hidden, disorder. When he is tired or under stress, he hears the voice of Hamish, a soldier whom Rutledge shot during the war for his failure to obey a direct, if suicidal, order.

In A Test of Wills, the very first book in this series, Rutledge returns to his job at Scotland Yard at the close of the war, but neither he nor his superiors knows if he is up to it. His first case involves two other veterans of that war, a colonel blown off his horse by someone with a shotgun and a captain seen as the most likely suspect. Because Captain Wilton is a national war hero, the Yard very much wants somebody else, anybody else, to be guilty of the crime.

Wilton had been planning to marry Lettice Wood, the ward of Colonel Harris, but on the night before the murder the two men had been heard quarreling. A witness says the argument had resumed the next morning. Other evidence also points to the captain, while there seems to be nobody else with both motive and opportunity.

The novel's title gains multiple meanings as the story unfolds, but firstly the case represents a test of Rutledge's will. Can he discover the truth when those at the center of the case seem determined to hide it from him? Can he build a case that will hold up in court, let alone stand up to the pressure from Scotland Yard? Most of all, can he silence the voice of Hamish long enough to focus his mind on the murder?

Rutledge, as it turns out, is not alone in suffering from shell shock. or its equivalent. A witness, once a prominent citizen and skilled worker, has become an alcoholic since the war. And a little girl who saw the decapitated body of the colonel remains in a state of shock. Rutledge's own experience makes him more willing and able to get more out of these witnesses than other detectives might have been able to do.

I found the novel's ending weak, given my preference for detectives who actually detect the killer rather than just get lucky at the end, but otherwise A Test of Wills is a good start to a good series of mysteries.