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A Cold Treachery
A Cold Treachery
A Cold Treachery
Audiobook12 hours

A Cold Treachery

Written by Charles Todd

Narrated by Samuel Gillies

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Charles Todd returns to the world of Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge in a series that the New York Times Book Review called "harrowing psychological drama" and the Washington Post Book World hailed as "among the most intelligent and affecting being written these days." This time the embattled Inspector has met his match hunting a brutal killer across a frozen hell and the one witness who may have survived a crime of. A COLD TREACHERY "You'll hang for this-see if you don't! That's my revenge! And you'll think about that when the rope goes around your neck and the black hood comes down.." Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he'd lost much of his soul-and his sanity-but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle. Was the killer someone the young family knew and trusted? When the victims are tallied the local police are in for another shock: One of the Elcotts' children, a boy named Josh, is missing. Now the Inspector must race to uncover a murderer and to save a child before he's silenced by the merciless elements-or the even colder hands of a killer. Haunted and goaded by the soldier-ghost of his own tortured war past, Rutledge will discover the tragedy of war that splintered one marriage-and pulled together another. Love, jealousy, greed, revenge-or was it some twisted combination of all of them? Any one could lead a man or woman to murder. What had the Elcotts done to ignite their killer's rage? With time running out, Rutledge knows all too well that such a cold-blooded murderer could be hiding somewhere in the blinding snow. preparing
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 17, 2014
ISBN9781490634036
A Cold Treachery
Author

Charles Todd

Charles and Caroline Todd are a mother-and-son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States. Together, they have written nearly thirty mysteries, including the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford series.

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Reviews for A Cold Treachery

Rating: 4.02250004 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another good read in this wonderful series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another excellent Ian Rutledge mystery. Like Martin Cruz Smith, Charles Todd uses the mystery genre as a vehicle to explore his very human characters and to write excellent prose. Mysteries make up the plots--including twists and turns, some unexpected--but the core of these books lies in the tortured Rutledge and the other characters that Todd creates. The period details are also excellent in setting the time and place without overloading a reader with exhaustive detail. This novel is particularly good in the series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an outstanding mystery that stays hidden until very near the end. The clues for the reader are sparse and, in places, one almost becomes exasperated that a solution will be found. The murder event in this book is among the worst I've ever read. The description of the characters is quite depressing but realistic. I want to read more from this author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Horrific murders in the winter bound fells country provide Bowles with another opportunity to discredit Rutledge. A missing boy adds to the urgency of solving the crime. The"why" of the crime is difficult to discern in this remote sheep tending part of England. His usual patient questioning and cogitation fail such that he resorts to several subterfuges which are not effective. Finding The missing boy is the loose thread that enabled Rutledge to unravel another crime emanating from the horror that was WW1.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge is by far the most entertaining of any mystery series I'm reading. The character development is top notch. The stories are captive to the final page
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reading Frances Brody's second Kate Shackleton novel prompted me to return to the Inspector Rutledge mysteries by Charles Todd, as both are set just after the First World War. I still enjoy these detective stories, but there is definitely a formula, as with all enduring series - for once, I would like Inspector Rutledge to visit a town or a city (the case in Preston referred to in this story would have been interesting), to challenge or simply escape the village mentality of the rural crime scenes he is constantly being dispatched to! 'December 1919. The North of England'Although Old Bowels is slightly more reluctant to send Rutledge this time, considering the success rate of his recent investigations (see novels 1-6!), the haunted Inspector is already on scene in 'The North' when the Yard is called in to investigate a mass murder in the Lakes. The Elcotts, a farming family with four young children, are found shot to death in their isolated farmhouse in the middle of a blizzard. The small valley community is shocked, with no clues to explain the brutality or identify the murderer - unless they can find 10 year old Josh Robinson, who has somehow escaped his family's fate. Search parties are sent out into the bleak, snow-covered fells of the surrounding landscape, but by the time Rutledge arrives, hope of finding the boy alive is dwindling. Without a witness to the crime, the Inspector must rely on the motives of those closest to the family, including an ex-husband, a jealous brother, and a sister looking for someone to blame. 'Greed. Jealousy. Revenge. The land - the lover - the wife ...' The more Rutledge delves into secret lives, the more like a soap opera the story becomes!The murderer is fairly obvious after the first few chapters, I have to say, but I enjoyed watching Rutledge gather the clues and struggle with his temper all the same. And despite Todd's frequent stereotypical references to 'the North' and its Bronte-esque inhabitants (those who aren't on the lam from London, anyway), the wintry weather and harsh scenery of the mountains contribute a dark and oppressive atmosphere to the story. Evocative and exciting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just as interesting and challenging as the others in this series. Inspector Ian Rutledge goes into the cold and snowy north lake country. As usual, there is a lot of time spent developing the characters and showing how the Inspector learns a lot about everyone and then has to decide what is relevant to the case and what is not.There are a number of suspects and weapons, plenty to keep the story going. There is the impatience to get the case solved even when there is not enough evidence. Rutledge is finally figuring out that his superior officer is not out for his best interests and realizes he must solve the case before his replacement arrives.We root for him because we know that he cares about the people and about the truth, not willing to reach an easy answer just to have a "victory" under his belt.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    `A Cold Treachery' (2005) is Charles Todd's seventh Ian Rutledge mystery novel, but the first for this reviewer. Rutledge is a Scotland Yard detective who is haunted by his service in the bloody trenches of the Great War. Rutledge hears voices - more precisely he hears one voice that of Hamish MacLeod, a soldier in Rutledge's unit who died in the war, but lives on in Rutledge's head. Hamish acts as his conscience and advisor. Bit odd, but an innovative story-telling mechanism. The first seven Rutledge stories all take place between June and December 1919 as Rutledge struggles to live with his memories. The story opens with this line: "You'll hang for this-see if you don't! That's my revenge! And you'll think about that when the rope goes around your neck and the black hood comes down...." In the midst of a fierce blizzard, a family has been slaughtered at an isolated farm in the remote north of England. No sign of a struggle, the Elcott family has been gunned down; father, mother, their young twins and his daughter. The 10-year-old son of Elcott is missing. Is the missing Josh another victim? Or is he the perpetrator? Or might it be one of several likely local residents? Or perhaps one of the several outsiders who now live in the isolated Lake District village of Urskdale? A relative perhaps? Todd crafts the tale so that any of the suspects might have uttered that phrase and he plausibly maintains that suspense throughout. An intriguing subtext: "Charles Todd" is actually a mother/son team of Charles and Caroline Todd and the story centers around mother/son and father/son relationships. `A Cold Treachery' is more a suspense/psychological mystery than a thriller. The setting is grim, many of the characters are grim, Ian Rutledge not the least among them. It makes for interesting read, if not especially a fun one.