by Charles Todd
I'm on a Charles Todd reading marathon...
This is the second book by a mother/son duo about the British Inspector Ian Rutledge. I have now read the first four books in the series. The first one that I read, a number of years ago,was the fourth book in the series, Watchers of Time.. I really enjoyed that one. I was intrigued by the writing and the ghost of a dead soildier who haunts the main character constantly.
I read the third book in the series, Search the Dark, last week. I found it a real chore to read.... it just didn't grab me.
It was with some trepidation that I started to read this book, the second one in the series, after my reaction to the third one. However, my interest and delight in this series was renewed. I found this book fascinating and hard to put down.
A criminal, being likened to Jack the Ripper, is terrorizing London. Rutledge's boss wants to get rid of him so that he(the boss) can track down the serial murderer and get the credit for solving the crime. Rutledge is sent off to Cornwall to investigate what have been described as a dual suicide and an accidental death. A family member is convinced that something is suspicious with these deaths.
No one seems to think that there is anything suspicious about the deaths, no one in the village seems to know anything and no one seems to want to talk if they do. The local police want Rutledge to find nothing is wrong and leave quickly. However, Rutledge finds that there have been several deaths, disappearances and apparent suicides in the family. He feels compelled to get to the truth about them before he can make a decision about the recent deaths.
Rutledge is surprised to learn that one of the two suicide victims is a famous poet, a writer of powerful poems including many about the war. He is very familiar with some of the poet's work and is surprised that the poet is a women given the power and subject nature of her poems.
After speaking to many family members and neighbours, and reading the poems, Rutledge becomes convinced that there is a serial murderer in or after the family, but all he has is hunches, no proof, no evidence from witnesses. All the people of the village are angry at the history he is digging up including the woman who originally requested that Scotland Yard come and investigate. It is following his intuition and by ferreting out little clues in the poems and little tidbits from witnesses that he is able to identify the murderer. I found this cerebral/deductive case very engaging right to the end.
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
The Confession
by Charles Todd
After 419 I had to read something I knew I would enjoy so I have returned to one of my favourite mystery authors.
This is another of the stories about Inpsector Rutledge, an Inspector with Scotland Yard who is suffering post traumatic stress as a result of his experiences in WWI.
Rutledge is approached by a young man who is dying. The man claims that he murdered another man in 1915 and he wants to confess before he dies. Rutledge doesn't arrest the man but goes to the village the man is from to see what he can find out. He is given a very hostile reception by all the townspeople. What are they hiding.
A few days later the young man is found dead in the river, he had been shot in the back of the head. Rutledge finds out that the young man is not who he claimed to be, he is another person from the same village.
As Rutledge tries to figure out why the young man would lie about his identify and confess to a murder, when there is no evidence that the person named has been murdered, he learns about a mother who has disappeared years before, without a trace, leaving her son and two young people she had taken into her care, all alone. The family home has been abandoned.
Rutledge than learns that the parents of the young man the women "adopted" were violently murdered and the young boy was also attacked at the time but survived. Rutledge learns that the imposter was writing novels about the town which could upset people in the town and two of the people he would like to interview in regards to the supposed murder (including the alleged victim) are reported as deserters by the military. Many of the young men seem to have affection for the young women who was "adopted". Could jealousy have driven one of the young men to murder?
Rutledge has to place a false story, about the death of one of the key characters, to get to information that leads him closer ot the truth. It is only because of thorough police work investigating the murders of the young boys famuly that Rutledge is able to figure out the truth. The murderer is a person he would never have suspected, nor any of the villagers. It turns out a young man, who thinks he is the son/heir of the first murdered man (the "young boy's" father) has been exacting revenge for his perceived ill fortune slowly and methodically.
As always, these books are filled with interesting characters, and many twists and turns. However, there were so many young men of a similar age involved in this that I had trouble keeping them all straight. The authors (a mother and son duo writing under the pend name) do a great job of depicting England after WWI. Interestingly, Hamish, the ghost of a dead soldier who haunts Rutledge, doesn't have too much to say in this story.
After 419 I had to read something I knew I would enjoy so I have returned to one of my favourite mystery authors.
This is another of the stories about Inpsector Rutledge, an Inspector with Scotland Yard who is suffering post traumatic stress as a result of his experiences in WWI.
Rutledge is approached by a young man who is dying. The man claims that he murdered another man in 1915 and he wants to confess before he dies. Rutledge doesn't arrest the man but goes to the village the man is from to see what he can find out. He is given a very hostile reception by all the townspeople. What are they hiding.
A few days later the young man is found dead in the river, he had been shot in the back of the head. Rutledge finds out that the young man is not who he claimed to be, he is another person from the same village.
As Rutledge tries to figure out why the young man would lie about his identify and confess to a murder, when there is no evidence that the person named has been murdered, he learns about a mother who has disappeared years before, without a trace, leaving her son and two young people she had taken into her care, all alone. The family home has been abandoned.
Rutledge than learns that the parents of the young man the women "adopted" were violently murdered and the young boy was also attacked at the time but survived. Rutledge learns that the imposter was writing novels about the town which could upset people in the town and two of the people he would like to interview in regards to the supposed murder (including the alleged victim) are reported as deserters by the military. Many of the young men seem to have affection for the young women who was "adopted". Could jealousy have driven one of the young men to murder?
Rutledge has to place a false story, about the death of one of the key characters, to get to information that leads him closer ot the truth. It is only because of thorough police work investigating the murders of the young boys famuly that Rutledge is able to figure out the truth. The murderer is a person he would never have suspected, nor any of the villagers. It turns out a young man, who thinks he is the son/heir of the first murdered man (the "young boy's" father) has been exacting revenge for his perceived ill fortune slowly and methodically.
As always, these books are filled with interesting characters, and many twists and turns. However, there were so many young men of a similar age involved in this that I had trouble keeping them all straight. The authors (a mother and son duo writing under the pend name) do a great job of depicting England after WWI. Interestingly, Hamish, the ghost of a dead soldier who haunts Rutledge, doesn't have too much to say in this story.
419
by Will Ferguson
This book won the Giller Prize this year. My question is WHY?
I found this book ridiculous and had to force myself to finish it. The end of the book is even ridiculous and totally unbelievable. It's like the author thought, how many ugly, stupid things can I put in one book and get away with it.
The story starts with the suicide of a retired man in Calgary. He has fallen for a Nigerian scam and mortgaged his house and savings. He has taken out an insurance policy just prior to his death but the insurance company refuses to pay because of the suspicion of suicide. The police look at his email messages and confirm that the man has been taken, and was being threatened by the Nigerian crooks.
The man's son takes revenge by joining a group of people who track and torment these 419ers. The daughter goes to Nigeria to confront the con artist.
Meanwhile there are side stories:
- about an Independent 419 operator who is forced to become part of a syndicate and turn over most of the money he makes to them;
- about Nigeria being exploited and polluted by foreign oil companies, and
- a young villager who first gets a job working with the oil companies and who later works with thugs to steel the oil. He also gets involved with a crook who is taking a tanker of stolen oil to sell it for a profit. They encounter a young pregnant girl along the road and the young man decides to try to help and protect her. His mother won't let him stay with her in their family village so she sends him to see a cousin in Lagos for assistance... with disasterous results.
The Canadian woman is able to track down her father's con man and get some money out of him. However, the young villager ends up getting murdered because he isn't successful in killing her. She gets out of Nigeria, more through dumb luck then intelligence but is harrassed in Canada, her mother doesn't want any of the money she recovers so she sends it to the pregnant women who was brefriended for the care of her child.... She knows the identity of her con man but hasn't turned him into the authorities... why not??? The good guys are killed, the bad guys don't receive justice.... The whole thing is preposterous!!!
I have seen positive reviews of this book.... I don't understand its appeal.
This book won the Giller Prize this year. My question is WHY?
I found this book ridiculous and had to force myself to finish it. The end of the book is even ridiculous and totally unbelievable. It's like the author thought, how many ugly, stupid things can I put in one book and get away with it.
The story starts with the suicide of a retired man in Calgary. He has fallen for a Nigerian scam and mortgaged his house and savings. He has taken out an insurance policy just prior to his death but the insurance company refuses to pay because of the suspicion of suicide. The police look at his email messages and confirm that the man has been taken, and was being threatened by the Nigerian crooks.
The man's son takes revenge by joining a group of people who track and torment these 419ers. The daughter goes to Nigeria to confront the con artist.
Meanwhile there are side stories:
- about an Independent 419 operator who is forced to become part of a syndicate and turn over most of the money he makes to them;
- about Nigeria being exploited and polluted by foreign oil companies, and
- a young villager who first gets a job working with the oil companies and who later works with thugs to steel the oil. He also gets involved with a crook who is taking a tanker of stolen oil to sell it for a profit. They encounter a young pregnant girl along the road and the young man decides to try to help and protect her. His mother won't let him stay with her in their family village so she sends him to see a cousin in Lagos for assistance... with disasterous results.
The Canadian woman is able to track down her father's con man and get some money out of him. However, the young villager ends up getting murdered because he isn't successful in killing her. She gets out of Nigeria, more through dumb luck then intelligence but is harrassed in Canada, her mother doesn't want any of the money she recovers so she sends it to the pregnant women who was brefriended for the care of her child.... She knows the identity of her con man but hasn't turned him into the authorities... why not??? The good guys are killed, the bad guys don't receive justice.... The whole thing is preposterous!!!
I have seen positive reviews of this book.... I don't understand its appeal.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
The Magic of Saida
by M.G. Vassanji
I have heard many positive things about this author but not read any books of us until this one. I can certainly appreciate the acclaim he has received.
This is an incredible, heartbreaking book. It is a wonderful story, about a man who has lived a "successful" but not necessarily happy life. He is an African-Indian, whose father deserted him and his mother. He doesn't feel entirely African and even less Indian. His mother sends him away to live with his Indian relatives.
He feels abandoned, he doesn't know where he really belongs.
He has a young female friend as a child, and later goes back to his home village. They have a brief affair and he leaves to pursue his life as a Doctor. Political events inspire him and the girl he has wandered into a relationship/engagement with, to move to Canada. They have a long, loveless marriage, and become successful. Eventually they separate.
One day one of the man's adopted "family" come to visit and tell him that his female friend had come looking for him while he was in training to be a doctor. No one had told him of her visit.
He decides to return to Africa to fulfill his promise of coming back to her.
While he is in Africa he meets several people who befriend him and who try to help him find the woman.
He eventually finds out that the woman had a child, his child, and that her husband took the child from her and divorced her. His quest almost drives him to madness and almost costs him his life.
The book also includes a story line about two brothers, both poets, the first brother is wants to overthrow the german occupiers, the second brother is a nazi sympathizer and ends up taking his brothers poems and claiming them as his own. He gets great fame for the poems and ends up betraying his brother to the Nazis.
The story is fascinating. You can feel the atmosphere of Africa.Informaiton is revealed in tiny bits as the story is told. The pathos and poignancy of the lives of the characters are written with insight and affection. I loved this book!
I have heard many positive things about this author but not read any books of us until this one. I can certainly appreciate the acclaim he has received.
This is an incredible, heartbreaking book. It is a wonderful story, about a man who has lived a "successful" but not necessarily happy life. He is an African-Indian, whose father deserted him and his mother. He doesn't feel entirely African and even less Indian. His mother sends him away to live with his Indian relatives.
He feels abandoned, he doesn't know where he really belongs.
He has a young female friend as a child, and later goes back to his home village. They have a brief affair and he leaves to pursue his life as a Doctor. Political events inspire him and the girl he has wandered into a relationship/engagement with, to move to Canada. They have a long, loveless marriage, and become successful. Eventually they separate.
One day one of the man's adopted "family" come to visit and tell him that his female friend had come looking for him while he was in training to be a doctor. No one had told him of her visit.
He decides to return to Africa to fulfill his promise of coming back to her.
While he is in Africa he meets several people who befriend him and who try to help him find the woman.
He eventually finds out that the woman had a child, his child, and that her husband took the child from her and divorced her. His quest almost drives him to madness and almost costs him his life.
The book also includes a story line about two brothers, both poets, the first brother is wants to overthrow the german occupiers, the second brother is a nazi sympathizer and ends up taking his brothers poems and claiming them as his own. He gets great fame for the poems and ends up betraying his brother to the Nazis.
The story is fascinating. You can feel the atmosphere of Africa.Informaiton is revealed in tiny bits as the story is told. The pathos and poignancy of the lives of the characters are written with insight and affection. I loved this book!
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