THE RED DOOR. By Charles Todd. William Morrow. 344 pages. $24.99.
World War I took a terrible toll on the men who fought in it. Those who lived to make it home to England bore the scars of their ordeal, whether their injuries were to the body or to the mind and spirit. In his popular series of mysteries starring Detective Ian Rutledge, a haunted veteran trying to reclaim his life, Charles Todd has masterfully mined that momentous time in British history when the soldiers returned from war to find that everything had changed, including themselves.
Now in the 12th Ian Rutledge novel, Todd takes a fascinating look at how the ravages of those war years affected some of the women who stayed behind. And through the prism of one proud family stubbornly trying to cling to the past, he sheds more light on a society in upheaval.
Intricately plotted, The Red Door demands careful attention from the reader. All comes clear in the end, but the reader will be as puzzled as Rutledge is for much of the story.
The red door of the title refers to a house in a village in Lancashire where a woman had impulsively painted the front door as a jubilant welcome home for the husband she was sure would be coming home any day, now that the war was over. But her husband never came home, and now, two years after the war's end, Rutledge has been dispatched to investigate the woman's brutal murder.
At about the same time, Walter Teller, a well-known missionary, is struck by a mysterious illness. Then he disappears from a London hospital, and Rutledge is brought in on the case. Teller reappears within a few days, but Rutledge is not satisfied with his explanations or with the conflicting stories told by his relatives.
Nor is he convinced that it is some bizarre coincidence that the husband who never came home to Lancashire has the same name as one of Walter Teller's brothers.
To solve the murder of the lonely woman in Lancashire, Rutledge must learn more about her, her missing husband and their young son, who had died of typhoid fever years before.
The more he learns, the more Rutledge suspects that to solve the murder in Lancashire, he also must cut through the many layers of deceit among the brothers, sisters and sisters-in-law in the prominent Teller family. Can loyalty to a family outweigh feelings for individual relatives? To what lengths will people go to protect a name and reputation?
The story is fascinating and compelling. Long-time fans of the series will also be interested in what might be signs of progress in Rutledge's personal life. Hamish, the dead Scottish soldier who is always in his head, is more subdued and less apparent this time out. And it is just possible that Rutledge might be heading toward a more fulfilling relationship with someone who is very much among the living.
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