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    A Long Shadow
    A Long Shadow
    A Long Shadow
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Long Shadow

    Written by Charles Todd

    Narrated by Samuel Gillies

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year's Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he'd seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend's house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable shot with a bow and arrow in an allegedly spirit-infested wood. Here among the taciturn townsfolk, embroiled in a three-year-old mystery of a vanished young girl, Rutledge hopes to keep his own ghosts at bay. But his stalker has followed him. And now the emotionally shattered policeman walking the razor's edge of sanity must somehow keep his balance long enough to discover who is tracking him...and why.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 17, 2014
    ISBN9781490634043
    A Long Shadow
    Author

    Charles Todd

    Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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    Reviews for A Long Shadow

    4/5

    178 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Inspector Rutledge discovers machine gun shells left for him to find in various places as he investigates the shooting of a constable in a small village. Someone is stalking him, but he doesn't know if it is connected to the case he is working on. He is attracted to a Mrs. Channing, except that she communicates with spirits.
    • 4/5
      Great series!
    • 4/5
      This very good series continues to provide insights into English town and village life following the War to End All Wars. Rutledge seeks to solve one mystery but others keep appearing. How is a 40-year-old corpse linked to the arrow in the back of the local constable? And, who is leaving those Mauser shells for him to find? It takes patience and many questions before the inspector resolves this one.
    • 4/5
      It's difficult enough to investigate crimes without doing it with a Scottish ghost by your side at every moment. But such is the challenge Inspector Ian Rutledge lives through each day following his return from the trenches at Sommes during WWI. It also seems someone is stalking him, leaving him empty shell casings, taking a shot at him while he's driving, even perhaps trying to run him down in a stolen lorry. Or do the attempts on his life and shell casing mean something else instead? Is he being warned away from discovering the body of a missing teenage girl in Dudlington? And who was responsible for the rector's fall and shooting Constable Henley in the back with a poisoned arrow? With close-mouthed villagers and an evil presence in the nearby woods, there are long shadows indeed dogging Inspector Rutledge's every step as he tries to make sense of the plots, mysteries and secrets he's only starting to uncover.
    • 3/5
      I have read six or seven of this series and find some of them good reads and some of them completely confusing and full of holes. The most unlikely flaw in this book is the very simple fact that a person's death in England has been registered since 1837 - there is no way Rutledge of the Scotland Yard would not have known that - locating that record would have solved one small mystery pretty quickly. I also find it hard to believe he can tootle swiftly all over Britain in a country that unlikely had much in the way of paved roads in 1920 and probably very little petrol so soon after WWI. Only the wealthy would have had cars and there are far too many around the little village for my comfort. Since there are two writers for this series I wonder if the ones I like are by one of the team and the less engaging by the other.
    • 3/5
      The Long Shadow is the eighth Ian Rutledge mystery by mother and son team Charles Todd, about a Scotland Yard detective in the 1920s still haunted by his time at the Front. The approaching commemoration of the First World War prompted me to return to the series, but getting back into the spirit of the novels took a while this time. Rutledge is either a deeply layered character scarred by the war, or a fruitloop who really shouldn't be working any more. 'Hamish', the spirit of a (very) Scottish soldier on Rutledge's conscience/a voice in his head, is starting to evolve into a completely separate personality, warning the detective of danger and lurking over his shoulder as the 'long shadow' of the war. A great device - Sherlock and Watson in one man - but slightly worrying, and distracting, for the reader who is supposed to 'shadow' Rutledge during the mystery. Are we supposed to care for this enigmatic loner with a split personality?This time, Old Bowels sends Rutledge to a small rural village (as ever) in Northamptonshire, on what could be a case with professional implications for Rutledge's superior. The local bobby has been shot with a bow and arrow in a haunted forest, and the locals think there might be a connection with the disappearance of a young girl, Emma Mason. Is Emma buried in the forest, and did the constable have anything to do with her death? To tangle the web still further, a soldier with a grudge seems to be stalking Rutledge, taking potshots and leaving empty gun shells behind, and a mysterious woman with almost psychic empathy has also latched onto the already beleaguered policeman. Who can Rutledge trust? The paranoia and creeping fear in this novel is almost palpable, with shadows in the night and everybody under suspicion. I found the plot to be rather convoluted, but compelling all the same. The murderer has one too many crimes heaped upon their head in the final chapters, making the final revelation rather silly, but the mix-up of crimes and relationships kept me guessing. And apart from 'drapes', 'walks' and 'sweaters', the narrative and dialogue remain fitting to time and place - recognisably post-war England.
    • 4/5
      A Long Shadow is the eighth in the Ian Rutledge series by mother/son writing duo Charles Todd. It is the first that I have read.Ian Rutledge is a police inspector from Scotland Yard who has recently returned from fighting in the trenches in France during World War I. While he struggles to recover from the memories and guilt haunting him, he resumes his duty of solving crimes and tries to heal a country that is just as shattered and broken as he is. In this book, he investigates a case in a remote village of a man (the local sheriff) found barely alive, shot in the back with an arrow in the nearby woods thought to be haunted by ancient Saxon ghosts. Looking into the attempted assassination, Rutledge is drawn to an unsolved mystery involving the disappearance of a teenage beauty. While the cases may or may not be related, there are common factors, and in a small town, most events are related. During the investigation of the case, he confronts local prejudice and tries to maintain his sanity in spite of the constant chiding of his ever-present companion Hamish (the ghost of a fellow soldier he had to execute for refusing to fight or the manifestation of his guilt for the lives lost under his command).The book is well-written and the descriptions evocative of a bleak yet slowly recovering country. Before reading the book, I was wary of the fact that one of the main characters is either a ghost or symptom of the detective's imagination; however, the supernatural was not overdone. The writing was done in a manner so that I could understand how his conscience and shell-shocked hallucinations were a reaction to his war experience, and that made his trauma and struggle to recover all the more palpable for me as a reader.The mystery wasn't difficult to figure out, from fairly early in the book. But the story remained interesting and suspenseful not because everyone was a suspect but because there was a question of whether Rutledge would survive / maintain control long enough to solve the case. Starting in London and throughout the investigation, Rutledge's condition is made worse by a stalker who shadows and terrorizes him by leaving tokens demonstrating that Rutledge is vulnerable anywhere at any time.The book is not gruesome--in fact, there is very little description of blood or gore. However, the book left me more emotionally drained than many violent stories do. I want to read another (and plan to do so) but not for a while.