Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: It is notoriously difficult to maintain quality in series writing. Up to this point, the mother-son team that is Charles Todd has managed to produce four wonderful books featuring Ian Rutledge. Sadly, this time out, they've hit the wall. Unlike the previous stories which had splendid characters that nicely balanced Rutledge and Hamish, the ghost in his head, Watchers of Time has a large cast, but the focus is almost exclusively on RutledgeÑso much so that Ian and Hamish become fairly tiresome. The narrative lacks drive and becomes perilously close to ponderous, as it lumbers along in pursuit of a plot that isn't sufficiently compelling to bear the weight of this narrow focus.As well, there are a number of glaring errors: anachronisms and non-British expressions. The most inexcusable is the arcane use of Titanic, minus "the." This is an affectation derived from James Cameron's film. In reality, people have always referred to ships as The Normandie, The Titanic, The Sylvania, etc. And this affectation of omitting a definite article inflicts a latter 20th century sensibility upon a book set in 1919. It's very jarring. The expression "Well met," used a number of times as a greeting is, in fact, a pre-Christian, Roman greeting and not one in common use in the early 20th century. There are sundry American words that glare: can rather than tin, and gotten--a word no English person would have used at that time (and rarely heard now.) The author(s) also speak of cancer which, in fact, only came into into common conversational use post WWII. Early in the century, people referred to "the wasting sickness" or other euphemisms for the disease. Then there's the amazing fact of Rutledge driving constantly, almost nonstop, but never once fueling his motor car. This is an oversight of fairly amazing proportions, given how much of the character's interior processes and dialogues (with Hamish) take place in the car--where Hamish sits permanently in the back seat. I will hope that the writing team will be back on track with the next book, offering more plot, more pacing, fewer lengthy ruminations, and more of the fascinating characters that populated the previous books.
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