A Day of Judgment (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries)
In this 25th series volume, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard is sent to England’s northeast coast to investigate the murder of a fisherman. The year is 1921, and WWI is fresh and still vivid in the minds of the local people, especially those who had to bring ashore victims of the German Navy and its submarines. People in the coastal villages Rutledge investigates live hard lives dominated by tides and storms, so it seems strange that the fisherman murdered was Oswin Dunn, who had spent his life studying local sea currents. Dunn, however, had been known as a ‘Hun lover’, or German sympathizer, an accusation that had set him apart especially after local ships and fishing boats had been sunk by submarines. Even after the war he was still a target of local bullies. But then a second body is found on another beach.
Todd has done a masterful job of not only revealing the harsh life on that exposed coast, but also the strong antagonism that lasted for many years after WWI. And, as in most of his mysteries, the reader becomes immersed in the minutiae of the postwar period. From the procedure for starting a large motor car to the correct way for a high-status person to address one of lower status – from the Chief Constable to the bobby on the beat – it is all detailed.
The author has also carefully researched the importance of this northeast coast in the development of early Christianity in the UK, as well as the currents and tides in this part of the North Sea, so there is much to discover in the novel. However, all this detail makes for a story that moves with deliberation rather than excitement.
