Tragedies so often happen on what start out as fine days — 9/11, for example — and so it is on this beautiful June day in 1914. Ian Rutledge, a promising young Scotland Yard detective, is about to become engaged to the woman he loves, Jean, a military officer's daughter. How can anything spoil this paradise? Yet very quickly two things do just that.
First, and at the time more significantly, Rutledge becomes involved in a murder investigation that takes him away from Jean for days at a time. But on that same day in Sarajevo, Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated, leading soon to the Great War, which will separate Ian and Jean forever.
This entire novel is a flashback. Other novels in the series feature Rutledge as a detective in the 1920s, still haunted by memories of the war. More specifically, he is haunted by the ghost of Hamish MacLeod, who also becomes engaged to be married on that same fine summer's day. Hamish will later become a soldier in Rutledge's unit whom Rutledge, as the commanding officer, has executed for disobeying an order.
As for the mystery, it involves a series of murders that look like suicides. Men drink milk laced with laudanum or are found hanging in their homes. Yet none of the men had seemed likely to commit suicide. They have nothing in common until Rutledge discovers they all served on the same jury in Bristol years before.
He identifies the likely suspect fairly early. The tricky part becomes discovering how this man persuaded the men to kill themselves and then actually catching him. Thus the novel becomes more a thriller and historical novel than a murder mystery in the usual Charles Todd mold. Any fan of the series should read it.
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