Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Unhealed scars of the Great War still torment Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, and he carries with him the presence of the soldier he was forced to execute in the midst of battle. A haunted, damaged shell of a man, he has been sent to the small coastal town of Hampton Regis to solve a violent crime and to confront his own tragic past.

An officer who served with Rutledge in the trenches of France before being sent back to England under suspicious circumstances has now been accused of savagely beating the husband of the woman he still loves. The suspect has taken the wife hostage, threatening to kill her and her maid unless Rutledge is put in charge of the investigation. Although the case painfully mirrors Rutledge's own past and the love he lost to another man, he cannot refuse it. When the unconscious brutalized victim vanishes without a trace, it's clear that this peaceful little town hides a vicious murderer . . . and secrets powerful enough to kill for.

Average Customer Rating:

What was to like about this book?

Customer Rating:

I didn't think an Ian Rutledge book could get worse than the previous "A Long Shadow," but "A False Mirror" is MUCH worse. It's a 40-page short story that got dragged out to 400 pages, undoubtedly to fulfill a contract obligation. Let's see, where to start -- characters that are impossible to care about, a totally ludicrous "hostage" situation, and redundant writing (Rutledge goes back and forth between the town and the main house in the story like a ping-pong ball, and the descriptions are always the same). And for some reason, sandwiches make an appearance in almost every scene; they're as ubiquitous as tea. Hamish has faded to the point that when he does speak up, it's jarring. Overall, the plot and motives are so thin that it's a very unsatisfying murder mystery, but on the bright side, when I was done with the book I felt like having a good sandwich.

well written mystery

Customer Rating:

This book has a good study of character and the mystery provides a chance to test your deduction skills. The depiction of life after WWI and the understanding the people had of the men who survived the blatant miss handling of the war stagtegy are well described. Up until this book the relationship between Rutledge and Hamish (his tormentor) was heavy handed but now it seems to add a wider dimention to the main character and the story.

Not Up to Standard

Customer Rating:

The Ian Rutledge series is one of my favorites, but I fear it might be nearing its sell-by date. Given the difficulty of sustaining a formula over time, it's a tribute to the authors' skill that the books remained strong for as long as they have. (There were a few earlier dips in quality, but nothing too serious.) Lately, though, the fabric is beginning to fray more obviously. Various plot elements, especially in the last couple of novels, have strained credulity, such as the invisible stalker in "Long Shadow" and the nonsensical hostage scenario in "False Mirror." The narrative strategy of Hamish is becoming more problematic, too -- it worked initially, but since it has remained static over the last few books, it's less and less effective. (The device now adds nothing new, and it's becoming harder to accept: if Rutledge really felt the degree of guilt and self-loathing that Hamish verbalizes, he'd surely have cracked by now.) And here's a minor point, but why doesn't Rutledge ever have to meet the press? He deals with the sort of sensational cases that would have been prime newspaper fodder even in the 20s (look how the press was all over Crippen ten years earlier), so it's odd that Rutledge pursues his investigations in almost total anonymity. I understand that the authors don't want to violate his character as a painfully self-contained isolato, so they can't really turn him into any sort of media star. But since the mode of the books is primarily realistic, the silence of the fourth estate is becoming rather deafening. Another element that seemed intrusive in the most recent books is the time frame. I guess I hadn't been paying attention before, but now I realize that all of these stories are supposed to take place over a period of about 10 months. Evidently only a couple of weeks (at most) separate each of these intense, mind-scarring cases, meaning that Rutledge is pin-balling from one danger-packed denouement and devastating psychological trauma to another with barely time to wash his socks in between. Almost daily, it seems, new griefs and pains and losses are piled on top of those that still haunt him from the war and from previous cases. Even a mentally healthy person would have a hard time remaining sane after a such a year; someone as damaged as Rutledge would probably be totally barking, sitting catatonic and drooling in some lost veterans' ward. I'm not sure why this tight time frame is necessary; what's the rush? (Are the authors trying to suggest, perhaps, that "peacetime" is just another form of relentless war? Or do they think that they can't logically continue a war-related series [and Hamish] too far into the next decade? If the latter, I disagree -- it would make more sense to have poor Rutledge still be struggling with war memories in 1923 or 1924 than to keep up the current breakneck pace. Maybe Hamish could go, though.) Still, the Charles Todd books are some of the best being written in the genre at the moment. (There are always a few Americanisms and anachronisms, but so far, I don't find them unbearable.) I suppose the plots aren't that important, anyway, when so many other elements -- the characters, the careful reconstruction of an ever-receding moment in history, the powerful exploration of the never-ending costs of war -- make this fine series worth reading. So, like Hamish, I'll stick with Rutledge. But I think I can hear Hamish saying to the Todds -- "'Ware! Ye cannae let things slide too far."

Disappointed

Customer Rating:

After eagerly awaiting this book and even having my husband pick me up a copy on a business trip to the US, I was sadly disappointed. I had noticed a downward trend in the last couple of books but the series seems to have taken a nose dive with this latest instalment. There were serious problems of logic and the plotline seemed to chase its own tail, going round in endless circles as if to stretch out the book. Many of the characters acted in an illogical and unrealistic manner and the whole hostage situation plotline was simply ridiculous. People just do not behave like that! This would have to be the worst book in the series so far. Unfortunately, many aspects of this series are becoming repetitious. After solving so many murders one would think that Rutledge's superior, Bowles, would do away with his vendetta even if only to stop himself from looking ridiculous to others. His ongoing hostility towards Rutledge is starting to look trite. And what about the role of Hamish? This is one aspect of the series that seems to have stalled completely. Whilst it began as an intriguing deviation on the murder mystery genre it seemed to reach it peak in `Legacy of the Dead' and has been in decline ever since. Perhaps the authors should try something different such as was hinted at in 'A Long Shadow' with the psychic Mrs. Channing. What exactly is Hamish's role? Is he a genuine ghost, haunting his killer? Does he represent Rutledge's conscience which has become disembodied due to his war experience? Is Hamish the manifestation of Rutledge's sixth sense which makes him the superb Scotland Yard Inspector that he has become? Why not let Rutledge face his ghost and explore these possibilities, either through supernatural means such as at a séance or by scientific means involving medical therapy. Psychology was in its infancy and this in itself would provide an interesting sideline to a murder case. There are so many aspects of this series that are yet to be explored and one can only hope that the authors do not settle for formulae writing and mediocrity. What started out as a fresh and exciting new take on an old Genre still has much untapped potential and I sincerely hope that the authors sit down, have a cup of tea and ask themselves where this series is heading.

Not up to Todd's usual great writing...

Customer Rating:

This is a readable book. I would not hesitate to recommend it to someone who enjoys mysteries. However, it is not as tightly plotted and written as the earlier mysteries in this series. It seems at times as though Todd was reaching for a certain length of book, and that the book could have been finished much sooner. The book begins not with one mystery for Rutledge to seemingly solve, but two. One in London, and another involving a soldier who had served under him, who had managed to get himself involved in a missing person case. The mystery in London is pushed to the side, and is solved by others with no help by Rutledge. It seems to serve no purpose in the story at all. As usual, Todd does a good job writing concerning the time period after WWI and the ongoing impact that war had on both soldiers and the people left at home. The impact on women was intense...women who had waited for soldiers to return often saw them come home in caskets, or expected this occurence and so married someone else who was older and not involved in the war. They also had to take on different jobs, and that changed women so the men who did return and expected women to remain in their usual positions in society, found that they could not handle those changes. The plot meanders in the middle of the book, and often Todd reiterates the same thing over again unnecessarily. Several possible culprits for both the disappearance of a man and 2 murders in the town are presented. The ending returned to Todd's usual tight writing, leaving the reader not only with a surprise, but also leaving Rutledge with a bad taste in his mouth... Karen Sadler