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 scandal and a village where absence has hardened into resentment. The two cases appear separate until concealed wartime movements reveal a common history.
The red door represents hope preserved beyond reason, but also the social expectation that wives and families should wait without question. The novel examines desertion, grief and the reinvention of identity after military service. Rutledge’s own divided life makes him particularly alert to those who have returned under a false version of themselves.
Jacqueline Winspear
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Rhys Bowen
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