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Inspector Ian Rutledge stumbles across a hostage situation on a drive in the county; being the man that he is, he can't ignore the situation. He does manage to bring a peaceful resolution to the matter, in spite of others who would rather have handled things their way. As a direct result of Rutledge's intervention, the grateful hostage-taker (an ex-convict) gives him a tip about a very cold case. After the 1910 Black Ascot race, there was a dreadful "accident" and one Alan Barrington was the prime suspect in a murder. Alan Barrington hasn't been seen since then and it's a decade later that the ex-con tells Rutledge that he has personally seen Mr. Barrington. Rutledge believes him and passes the information along to his superior at the Yard. Chief Inspector Jameson promptly gives Rutledge two weeks to find Mr. Barrington - quietly, with as little publicity as possible.
The "accident" killed a woman and seriously injured her husband. Alan Barrington was in love with the woman who died. The presumption was that the accident was intended to kill the husband, thus freeing Blanche Richmond Thorne Fletcher-Munro to marry Mr. Barrington. Barrington had issues with Mark Fletcher-Munro, insisting that Fletcher-Munro had given Mark Thorne (the first husband of Mrs. Fletcher-Munro) the bad financial information which led, directly or indirectly, to Mr. Thorne's suicide. Barrington was further incensed by the fact that the widow Thorne had married Fletcher-Munro instead of himself. The investigation came to a reluctant halt when Barrington disappeared - completely and totally vanished. This served to convince just about everybody, officials and the general public, of his guilt.
As Rutledge starts poking through the case, he learns that there were people other than Mr. Barrington who had problems with some of the principals in the case. Not everyone told the truth then, and are just as reluctant to tell the truth now, a decade later. Most of the people connected to the case are still alive; one (seemingly peripheral) individual goes missing and Rutledge is convinced that Alfred Monroe holds a key to the Barrington case. Maybe not "the" key, but something relevant and important. In spite of the seemingly tangential connection to Barrington (through Barrington's lawyer, Jonathan Strange), Rutledge turns the small town of Sandwich inside out looking for Mr. Monroe. Rutledge is correct; Mr. Monroe connects all the dots to form a coherent picture of the case.
THE BLACK ASCOT is the 21st entry in the Ian Rutledge series for Charles Todd; obviously Todd knows how to tell a story and tell it well. Rutledge deals with shell-shock in every book; as he does so, it is clear to readers that he matures as a character and as a man. I, as a long-time reader of mystery/crime fiction, had an issue with a clue that I felt Rutledge over-looked. I also know that police procedurals can hinge on something minor and unobtrusive; it is perfectly plausible that Rutledge had other leads on his mind and would have gotten there in his own good time. This niggling fact did not spoil the story for me; Todd's writing never fails to keep me in my chair for hours on end. THE BLACK ASCOT is no exception.
§ I have been reading and reviewing mystery fiction for over a quarter of a century and read broadly within just about all genres and sub-genres. I have been a preliminary judge for the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Press Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Contest for at least 25 years. I live in Northern lower Michigan with my spousal unit, one large cat, and 2 fairly small dogs.
Reviewed by PJ Coldren, December 2018
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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