(2007) Scotland Yard is asked to assist on the apparent murder of a local priest which appears to be connected to a petty theft of church funds. It quickly is determined that a strong man from a side show is the culprit and he is quickly arrested. Ian Rutledge doesn't think everything adds up and pursues the case beyond his superiors' wishes, as usual. He and Hamish discover that the priest had an obsession with the recent Titanic sinking and its survivors. A local gentry is drawn into it when it is determined that the wife of one of his sons was on the ship when it went down, but Rutledge finds that she may not have even been on the ship. Turns out the the gentry's sons and he had murdered the wife and covered it up by making it appear she was one of the disaster's victims. The priest was murdered as it appeared he was getting too close to the truth. KIRKUS: Two weeks after the fete at St. Anne's in the Norfolk village of Osterley, Father James lies dead in the rectory. Although Inspector Blivens thinks robbery was the motive¥the fete proceeds are goneÂ¥Father James's bishop, not so sure, asks Scotland Yard to pop around. The Yard sends off Ian Rutledge, recovering from a shoulder wound in the line of duty and still deviled by his memories of service in the Great War and the apparition of dead soldier Hamish MacLeod. Blivens quickly takes into custody Matthew Walsh, the fete's strong man, but further inquiries lead Rutledge to Lord Sedgewick, the local squire; his sons Arthur and Edwin; Priscilla Connaught, the only villager who truly hated Father James; May Trent, a survivor of the Titanic, to whom Father James bequeathed a picture of Arthur's late wife Virginia; and the squire's former chauffeur, Herbert Baker, a parishioner of Mr. Sims at Holy Trinity, who nevertheless insisted on talking with Father James on his deathbed. There'll be another homicide, a trek around the countryside, the revelation of an old murder, and endless cups of tea before Rutledge, exhausted and aching, painstakingly assigns blame for all three deaths, cranks up his automobile, and heads back to London with the ever-present Hamish haunting him from the back seat.A spot-on recreation of the 1919 period, some wily use of the Titanic tragedy and villagers' xenophobia, and the most persistent plaguing by a ghost since Macbeth. Todd fans (Legacy of the Dead, 2000, etc.) will queue up for this one.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2001ISBN: 0-553-80179-1Page Count: 339Publisher: Bantam

recommended by Jon Katz...Bedlam Farm Journal
British mystery, post WWI

death of priest leads to scandal and murder previously unsuspected

I seems I should have read the one before this first. I let too much time pass and didn't realize that the series builds on itself. A lot of talk about something that happened in Scotland that I didn't know about. I enjoyed the reader, though he didn't differentiate between characters with his voice, so I sometimes was confused. I'll look for the missing title. A good series. ( )

As these books go on, I'm enjoying time spent with Rutledge more and more. I can even tolerate Hamish more now then I could in the beginning. The mystery here was fair, but it felt a little drawn out, and the books are beginning to feel too formulaic. ( )