For a limited time, experience the first Ian Rutledge novel from Charles Todd at a special price, including an exclusive excerpt from The Confession, a new Rutledge mystery, available this January.
In A Test of Wills, It is 1919, and the War to End All Wars has been won. But for Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, recently returned from the battlefields of France, there is no peace. Suffering from shell shock, tormented by the mocking, ever-present voice of the young Scot he had executed for refusing to fight, Rutledge plunges into his work to save his sanity. But his first assignment is a case certain to spell both personal and professional disaster.
A popular colonel has been murdered in Warwickshire, and the main suspect is a decorated war hero and close friend of the Prince of Wales. The case is a political minefield, and no matter what the outcome, Rutledge may not escape with his career intact. And, win or lose, the cost could be even higher: The one witness who could break the case is himself a shell shock victim, teetering on the edge of reality. In this war-ravaged man, Rutledge sees his own possible future, should he fail.
