A Lonely Death

A Lonely Death brings Rutledge to a Sussex village where three veterans of the Great War have been found garroted with identification discs placed in their mouths, ritualistic killings that suggest personal rather than opportunistic motives. A fourth soldier dies after Rutledge arrives, demonstrating that the killer is unbothered by the detective's presence. Todd's thirteenth Rutledge novel explores the particular grief of men who survived the war only to be destroyed by its long shadow.

Simon Prebble's narration gives this entry a measured weight that honors the veterans at its center. Prebble understands the Rutledge series well enough to make Hamish, the voice of the soldier Rutledge was forced to execute, feel like a genuine presence rather than a literary device, and the Sussex setting comes through with a quiet, rural stillness that makes the violence inside it more disturbing.