#1 – A Test of Wills
In June 1919, Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent to a Warwickshire village to investigate the murder of a widely admired colonel. The strongest suspect is a decorated veteran with influential connections, and local witnesses seem more interested in protecting reputations than clarifying facts. Rutledge must conduct…
#2 – Wings of Fire
In July 1919, Rutledge travels to Cornwall after three members of an eminent family die in circumstances that appear unrelated. One of the dead is revealed as O. A. Manning, a reclusive poet whose wartime verse had helped Rutledge endure the trenches. The deaths lead him…
#3 – Search the Dark
In August 1919, a tormented veteran sees a woman he believes to be his missing wife travelling with their two children. Soon a woman is found dead near the Dorset village of Singleton Magna and the children vanish. Rutledge doubts the easy case against the veteran,…
#4 – Legacy of the Dead
In September 1919, bones discovered on a Scottish mountainside are believed to belong to a missing woman, and a young mother is accused of killing her. The suspect is Fiona MacDonald, formerly engaged to Hamish MacLeod, whose voice still haunts Rutledge. Investigating the case forces him…
#5 – Watchers of Time
In October 1919, Rutledge is sent to a marsh-bound Norfolk village after a Catholic priest is murdered shortly after hearing a dying man’s confession. The secrecy of the confessional frustrates ordinary police methods, while religious suspicion and an old disappearance divide the community. Rutledge must determine…
#6 – A Fearsome Doubt
In November 1919, evidence emerges that Rutledge may have helped send an innocent man to the gallows before the war. At the same time, a sequence of attacks on former soldiers draws him into a new investigation whose victims seem connected only by military service. The…
#7 – A Cold Treachery
During a December blizzard in 1919, Rutledge is summoned to an isolated Westmorland farm where nearly an entire family has been murdered. One child is missing, and the evidence cannot establish whether the boy escaped, was abducted or took part in the killings. Snow closes roads…
#8 – A Long Shadow
In January 1920, Rutledge is drawn to a Northamptonshire village after a constable is shot with an arrow in a wood believed to be haunted. The attack revives the unsolved disappearance of a young woman three years earlier and exposes the hostility beneath the village’s guarded…
#9 – A False Mirror
In March 1920, Rutledge travels to the coastal town of Hampton Regis after a man is nearly beaten to death and the principal suspect takes a woman hostage. The accused insists that he is innocent and demands Rutledge as negotiator, forcing the inspector to examine a…
#10 – A Pale Horse
In April 1920, a body is discovered in the ruins of Fountains Abbey wearing a cloak and gas mask, with a book on alchemy nearby. The theatrical arrangement conceals the victim’s identity and directs suspicion towards a remote settlement created around a mysterious white horse carved…
#11 – A Matter of Justice
In May 1920, a wealthy and widely disliked businessman is found murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his Somerset estate. The staging suggests punishment rather than simple robbery, and Rutledge uncovers grievances reaching back to imperial ventures, financial betrayal and men who died far from…
#12 – The Red Door
In June 1920, the investigation of a prominent man who disappears from a London clinic becomes linked to the murder of a woman behind the red door she painted for a husband who never returned from the front. Rutledge moves between a family anxious to control…
#13 – A Lonely Death
In July 1920, former soldiers are found garrotted in a Sussex village, each with an identity disc placed in his mouth. The ritual points unmistakably to the war, but the victims served in different circumstances and appear to have resumed ordinary lives. As the body count…
#14 – The Confession
In August 1920, a dying man comes to Rutledge and confesses to killing his cousin during the war. Weeks later the confessor is found shot and floating in the Thames, but the identity he gave proves false and the supposed earlier victim may never have existed.…
#15 – Proof of Guilt
In September 1920, an unidentified man is found in a London street after apparently being struck by a motorcar. A valuable watch suggests a connection to a long-established wine-importing firm, yet one partner is missing and the other is abroad. Rutledge must identify the victim before…
#16 – Hunting Shadows
In August 1920, a man is shot during a society wedding at Ely Cathedral and another apparently unrelated victim is killed soon afterwards. A witness gives an implausible description, and the obvious suspect does not fit the pattern of the crimes. Rutledge gradually recognizes a connection…
#17 – A Fine Summer’s Day
In the summer of 1914, before shell shock and Hamish, Rutledge investigates a series of deaths scattered across England while preparing to marry and advance within Scotland Yard. The victims seem unconnected, and the approaching European crisis competes with the case for official attention. As the…
#18 – No Shred of Evidence
Four young women are accused of attacking a man during a boating outing after a witness claims to have seen them leave him to drown. The injured man dies before he can explain what happened, and the women’s social standing only intensifies public suspicion that influence…
#19 – Racing the Devil
On the eve of the Battle of the Somme, a group of officers make a reckless promise that any survivors will meet after the war and race from Paris to the Mediterranean. Years later, a motorcar crash in England and a sequence of suspicious deaths suggest…
#20 – The Gate Keeper
Driving late at night, Rutledge encounters a frightened woman standing beside the body of a man shot on a deserted road. The apparent witness knows little about the victim, and the investigation soon reaches a bookseller whose influence in the community conceals bitter private disputes. A…
#21 – The Black Ascot
A former prisoner gives Rutledge a lead on Alan Barrington, the fugitive suspected of a notorious murder during the Black Ascot of 1910. The information reopens a case associated with wealth, racing society and a national period of mourning, but a decade has allowed witnesses to…
#22 – A Divided Loyalty
Rutledge is asked to review two difficult cases involving unidentified women, one of them found murdered within the prehistoric stone circle at Avebury. Local silence and the absence of ordinary personal clues have defeated the first investigators. As Rutledge widens the search beyond the villages, he…
#23 – A Fatal Lie
A boy discovers a man’s body in a Welsh river below a canal aqueduct. With no identification and no local witnesses willing to admit seeing him, Rutledge begins with a military tattoo and an unusual clothing label. The clues lead to Sam Milford, a respected man…
#24 – A Game of Fear
In the spring of 1921, Rutledge is sent to an Essex manor after Lady Benton reports witnessing a murder for which there is no body, blood or missing person. She identifies the killer as Captain Nelson, an airman believed to have died during the war. The…
#25 – A Day of Judgement
In July 1921, a local man’s body washes ashore near Lindisfarne during a heatwave that has filled the Northumberland coast with holidaymakers and pilgrims. Concerned that the crime may damage the reputation of Holy Island and the Church, Scotland Yard sends the newly promoted Rutledge to…