Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the reviews suggest
Review: I ordered this largely through reading the reviews here at Amazon, and having just finished it, I find myself disappointed. I wonder how many of the reviewers were actually familiar with the historical context of WWI Britain, but I found myself frequently irritated with Todd's rather synthetic, late-twentieth-century attempts to recreate world about which he feels no true empathy. I felt at various points he'd read a 2-page summary of the Great War and a few Agatha Christie novels and no more, throwing out the odd detail to give some historical feel to the book. The hero, a wounded war vet returning to his job at Scotland Yard, starts out promisingly, but after the first half of the book, I was sick of his every-six-pages breakdown, flashbacks to the war, etc. They felt MARKETED, as if some hidden agenda required them, not because the plot did. In addition, the hero's overt and self-pitying obsession with his own pain was atypical of the time (not a shred of "stiff upper lip," there in a nation legendery for that quality). His shell-shock is also treated oddly; England must have been full of families who saw their sons suffering from shell-shock after the war, but Todd makes them all react with fear, contempt, and loathing to anyone with that sad malady. Finally, the Inspector is as determined to dig out scandal and sexual or emotional pecadillo as Geraldo Rivera; again, that doesn't seem right for the time. In short, although I think the ending is ingenious, this is a late-20th-century book which only skims the surface, pretending to be about a shell-shocked veteran and police gumshoe from WWI, but without the right "feel." It's a marketing idea that reads much better on the back of a publisher's come-on than in the book itself. If you want to read the REAL thing, read Dorothy Sayers. Her Lord Peter Wimsey, damaged WWI veteran in books actually written in the '20's and '30's, effortlessly hits all the right notes on that subject, just as this book doesn't. I doubt I'll read the next several in the series, which are already pre-planned.
Rating: 
Summary: Historical Mystery or Mystery Pastiche
Review: I think some of the confusion about Todd's work is the fact that Todd is not trying to write an imitation of a golden age mystery. He is trying to recreate the period just after the end of World War I when Britain was adjusting to the momentous changes forced on it by the war inasfar as it aids in the story that Todd is telling. Todd's interest is in the effect of the war on the individual and society as played out in the homicide career of Ian Rutledge. The over-riding story arc involves Rutledge's antagonist at Scotland Yard who is trying to set Rutledge up for a fall. This is not a spoiler because it is revealed very early in the book. This specific story is about the murder of a local landowner who seemed to have no enemies, although he had recently quarreled with his ward's fiance, a war hero high in the esteem of the nation and the Royal Family. This political hot potato is tossed to Rutledge to resolve. Failure could mean the end of his career. Success could mean the end of his career. For those who think that the sexual frankness of some of the characters in this book is out of period, they need to look at the social history of the time rather than what one thinks the social history is. Remember Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Well of Loneliness were both published in this decade. And even though both of the books were pronounced obscene, they were still gobbled up by the reading public. Although his prose is at times gothic and overwrought, Todd also floats some very interesting ideas. The series clearly, at this stage at least is worth following.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Mystery or Mystery Pastiche
Review: I think some of the confusion about Todd's work is the fact that Todd is not trying to write an imitation of a golden age mystery. He is trying to recreate the period just after the end of World War I when Britain was adjusting to the momentous changes forced on it by the war inasfar as it aids in the story that Todd is telling. Todd's interest is in the effect of the war on the individual and society as played out in the homicide career of Ian Rutledge. The over-riding story arc involves Rutledge's antagonist at Scotland Yard who is trying to set Rutledge up for a fall. This is not a spoiler because it is revealed very early in the book. This specific story is about the murder of a local landowner who seemed to have no enemies, although he had recently quarreled with his ward's fiance, a war hero high in the esteem of the nation and the Royal Family. This political hot potato is tossed to Rutledge to resolve. Failure could mean the end of his career. Success could mean the end of his career. For those who think that the sexual frankness of some of the characters in this book is out of period, they need to look at the social history of the time rather than what one thinks the social history is. Remember Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Well of Loneliness were both published in this decade. And even though both of the books were pronounced obscene, they were still gobbled up by the reading public. Although his prose is at times gothic and overwrought, Todd also floats some very interesting ideas. The series clearly, at this stage at least is worth following.
Rating: 
Summary: Very different and quite good
Review: I was keeping this book in my car and reading it while riding the stationary bike at the gym, so I was only getting it in little pieces. But the story intrigued me and I soon found myself cycling away much longer than usual! I found the protagonist and his inner battles to be quite interesting, and the "story" of the book, the murder, was equally so. This actually reminded me of Anne Perry's first few in the series of Monk books, which I also enjoyed and also, actually, of Thomas Cook's "The Chatham School Affair." I would definitely recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting idea for a mystery
Review: Inspector Ian Rutledge has returned from four years service in the trenches of World War I, and Scotland Yard has assigned him his first case after his return. He has an enemy in the Yard who assigns him a particularly tough case, envisioning him messing it up and arresting the obvious prime suspect, another war hero who was awarded the Victoria Cross. Rutledge balks at making a hasty arrest, however, and spends a week in the English countryside investigating thoroughly. Rutledge is an interesting character. He's haunted by the war, and by things he did in the middle of it. He hears a voice in his head, often, a particular individual who served with him in the war, but has opinions on everything that passes within Rutledge's view. There are other characters in the book, all well-drawn and interesting, and there's much about the war and its effect on people, and their psyches. The temptation is to compare this novel with Christie, Sayers, or perhaps Stout. Frankly, this is a bit thin. All of these writers wrote about their own era, more or less, and felt less need to recreate a bygone era. They also wrote in an era where elaborate plots and motives were almost required in mystery fiction, while characters were almost unimportant. Christie was especially notorious in this regard. The present author, by comparison, has produced a full, well-written novel with a puzzle in it. The clues that present themselves towards the solution of the story aren't as obvious signposts as Christie's, or Sayers' famous red herrings, but they are there, and if you read carefully enough I suppose you could solve the mystery (I never try). The plot does drag in the middle a bit. Rutledge doesn't do anything for two hundred pages except question people repeatedly, asking the same questions and getting fuller answers as he persists in his investigation. When the action does finally heat up, it's only a bit, and the climax comes rather suddenly. Given that, and the other complaints about the book enumerated above, I did enjoy this book, and will look for the others in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, vivid and moving
Review: Seldom does a mystery contain such genuine characters and overwhelming prose. Todd is a true talent. One of the best novels of recent memory.
Rating:
Summary: The shell-shocked detective
Review: Set in 1919, Todd's fine first novel features Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge, returned from the Great War with a secret - he suffers from shell shock and is haunted by the loud, taunting, cynical voice of a dead fellow soldier.
A spiteful, jealous colleague who harbors suspicions about Rutledge's mental health manages to have him assigned to a no-win case in a small village - the murder of a popular military officer. The chief suspect is a war hero and friend of the Prince of Wales. Worse, the chief witness is a deranged shell-shock victim.
As Rutledge tramps over the countryside, making his dogged way among the resentful relatives and friends of the victim (who have already chosen a convenient scapegoat), feretting out their painful secrets, his own precarious state threatens to expose him with every brush of a raw nerve.
Todd populates his novel with complex characters, each with the characteristic closeness of country villagers, and constructs an absorbing mystery (with perhaps a too surprising solution) in an atmospheric setting, but the real star of this novel is the protagonist. Without being overdone, Rutledge's edgy reality is gripping, the gibbering gnome on his shoulder a constant goad
.
This is still the best of the series.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, original, outstanding
Review: Test of Wills is about Ian Rutledge, a Scotland Yard inspector and a survivor of World War I shell shock. The war has destroyed his engagement to the weak Jean who is unable to deal with this returning soldier and dumps him while he is still recovering. Worse yet, he is haunted by the soldier whom he ordered shot for desertion, a Scot named Hamish, who reminds Rutledge often of his widowed bride left alone...thanks to Rutledge. Rutledge cannot shut out Hamish' voice but manages to continue his work as a sleuth. And he is quite imaginative in untangling the complex threads of deceit and murder when he takes on tracking down who killed Colonel Charles Harris - a local leading light of whom everyone has nothing but good to say. As Rutledge pokes about, carrying on conversations with folks, it's his uncanny insight into human nature that leads him toward the solution -- an insight augmented by his tortuous relationship with his own personal ghost.
Rating:
Summary: A good background of war-related post-traumatic shock.
Review: The mystery itself is well done but I was intrigued by the general population's inability to comprehend what life in the trenchs had been like and what the resultant shellshock really meant. I think he creates the ambiance of village life of the time very well. I am looking forward to his next book in the series immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Good mystery, but great characters
Review: The shell-shocked Scotland Yard inspector who is at the center of this mystery is one of the more interesting detective characters of recent years. His internal dialogues with a dead soldier whose death haunts him are fascinating and work both toward characterization and toward solving the mystery. As for the mystery itself, there are a few too many red herrings sprinkled throughout, but the puzzle is fair is solvable; that part of the story reminded me very much of Agatha Christie's work in terms of the way she laid out the plot and the clues. Highly recommended.
| 
