I liked this book a lot. The only thing about it is that there was three really distinct story lines. It got a little confusing keeping up with how many secrets were being kept and who was keeping them. There was a lot of people dying for various reasons in this story and I didn't think some of it really added much to the story line. Lots of twists and turns to the story all the way to the end. ( )

The disappearance of a prominent author and missionary leads Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge into the English countryside to investigate the death of a war widow.

The twelfth novel in Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge series, The Red Door combines some of the best elements of modern mysteries and those of the Golden Age of Christie, Sayers, and Marsh. A close-knit family guarding a family secret, the English landed-class of the 1920s, a single-minded detective determined to find the truth are all staples of the Golden Age. But Todd adds the more modern elements of a flawed central character (haunted by the First World War), and characters who know "Chin up, old boy!" is not always the best response to the modern world.

I haven't read any of the other books in this series, and doing so might have increased my understanding of some of the minor parts of the book (an old romance, a case in Scotland that traumatized Rutledge), but the book can be read and understood without reading the first eleven books.

My only complaints are minor (in the first paragraph, a woman considers her reflection in order to describe what she looks like to the reader; a Scottish character whose accent is conveyed through all sorts of non-standard spellings and apostrophes), but overall it was an enjoyable read. ( )

1920, Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned two cases — one is the bloody murder of a woman in Lancashire. The second is a missing person.

Rutledge has been back at Scotland Yard for just a year, having served time on the war front. One thing he carries with him is the voice of Hamish, a Scot who served with Rutledge during the war and now lies in a French grave. Hamish was ever present and ever giving commentary.

Walter Teller has gone missing from the Belvedere Clinic. A man from an important family, he’d been hospitalized with possible mental problems. He had withdrawn and appeared to become paralyzed. Miraculously, he had managed to dress himself and walk out of the clinic without anyone noticing.

In Lancashire, Florence Teller is found bludgeoned to death in her front doorway. She was a woman who kept to herself and had no enemies. She lived alone as her husband had gone off to war. She was waiting for him to come home.

As Rutledge works through both cases, he finds it hard going due to the lack of information that isn’t readily available and information people aren’t giving out. There is also the possibility there is a link between the two cases, as the name Peter Teller is a part of each case. The name of the murdered woman’s husband, who is supposed to have died in the war, and the name of one of the missing man’s brothers is also Peter Teller, and he suffers from a sever leg problem from his time in the war. Neither party knows each other…or do they?

I think this is a well written book along the lines of Martha Grimes’ Inspector Jury and Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache. A good read in my book. ( )

A different kind of mystery, at least to me. Shortly after the end of WWI, Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned two investigations: into a man who has been attacking people at night, and into the disappearance of a prominent citizen. He sets his own pace, however, not always showing up where he is expected to be.

The disappearance is of a former missionary, Walter Teller, followed his hospitalization for a mysterious illness. He apparently came out of the paralysis that siezed him and took off out of the hospital, sight-unseen. Teller and his brothers were "assigned" their vocations by their overbearing father, and while they complied with his wishes none of them found their careers satisfying. Some people suspect that Walter was reacting to a call from his church to return to the field, a return he clearly did not want to make.

But there is a wrinkle in the whole family story. A woman is found dead in another community, and it turns out her last name is Teller also, and that she married someone named Peter Teller, the same name as Walter's brother. Coincidence? After all, Peter already has a wife. IS this a relative or is it bigamy or what? This is the question Rutledge has to answer.

We get to know Rutledge in part through his work on these cases. We learn that he is suffering from "shell shock"and hears the voice of a former subordinate in his head. He has bad memories of how this person died and is careful not to let anyone know that he is talking to him. I found his investigative method a little odd. Perhaps I expected more of a standard procedure to be followed. Nonetheless, he followed his own instincts and got there in the end. It's as much a story about Rutledge as it is about the people he investigates. I am always on the side of stories that dig into characters like this. ( )

This is a twisting mystery that demands your attention to keep up with the details. I love Charles Todd's writing (and I understand this is a mother-son writing team) but I found myself getting impatient as the story kept unfolding with so many twists that it started to wear me out. Maybe I just need tidier mysteries and I will say that I was drawn into the setting and general premise with little resistance. Plus, I do plan to read more in this series involving inspector Rutledge from "the Yard." ( )