Book Review

By Derryll White

Todd, Charles (1996).  A Test of Wills.

‘The Proper English Gentleman’

            And eats in the regular mess and calls the men by name

            And shares the dirty work with ‘em, what’s called the killing game

            Of English Imperialism and all it represents,

This is Charles Todd’s first novel, an historical crime fiction work, set in the ‘Golden Age’ as most reviewers and publicists call it.  I have never read this type of fiction before but several well-read customers at Lotus Books recommended Todd to me.  So, I thought I would try ‘A Test of Wills.’

The story is set in war-wounded Britain circa 1919.  Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is only recently returned from the vicious and bloody battlefields of France.  Damaged by events and shell shocked (read PTSD) Inspector Rutledge is tricked by unscrupulous Yard politicians into taking on a murder inquiry that tests his stamina and sanity.

Todd takes the reader inside the head of a man desperately trying to reclaim his sanity and role in society.  The frequent scenes of war carnage and trench warfare ring true to the remaining photos, footage and diaries of WW I we have access to today – unavoidably uncomfortable and sad.  The reader understands the chaos fulminating in Inspector Rutledge’s shell-shocked mind, and unconsciously pulls for him to recover and succeed in unraveling the mystery of Colonel Harris’ murder.

Hamish, the Scottish voice and personality Inspector Rutledge carries in his head, is the manifestation of Rutledge’s shell-shock, called forth mainly by the Inspector’s situational stress.  Hamish is also the embodiment of the futility of war.  Broken by too much needless horror and slaughter, Hamish is one of those sad souls assassinated by authority.

He lives on in Rutledge’s mind, the conscience and guide through the after-effects of a tragic, horrible war.  Charles Todd uses Hamish boldly to point toward the soul-destroying results of man’s insanity and greed taken to its azimuth.

‘A Test of Wills’ is a novel of bold twists and turns, and contains risks not normally taken in a first novel.  Tortured Inspector Ian Rutledge wins through in the end, not heroically but in a believable fashion.  It is very much a novel of the mind, of the psychological tricks our mind calls forth seemingly unbidden.  Todd is a strong writer and this is an auspicious debut.  I will read more and encourage others to give him a try.  Perhaps start with this, his inauguration of the characters.

****

Excerpts from the novel:

CLASS – And the fact that his father had been a barrister, not a poor miner.  Schooling had come easily to Rutledge.  He hadn’t had to plod, dragging each bit of knowledge into his brain by sheer effort of will, dreading examinations, knowing himself a mediocrity.  It rubbed a man’s pride to the bone to struggle so hard where others soared on the worldly coattails of London-bred fathers and grandfathers.  Blood told.  It always had.  Bowles passionately resented it.

SHELL SHOCK – Shell shock was an odd thing, it made it’s own rules, they’d said.  Understand that and you could manage to keep your grip on reality.  Fight it, and it would tear you apart.  But he had fought it for a very long time – and they were right, it had nearly destroyed him.

WOMEN – “Women,” Hamish said unexpectedly.  “They always ken the cruelest way to torment a man for what he’s done, witting or no.”

GAMES – “The Colonel was the finest chess player I’ve ever met, and I have no mean skills at the game myself.  He was born with a talent for strategy that few of us are given, and he made the choice about how to use it.  He fully understood that choice, that war meant playing with men’s lives, not with pretty carved pieces on a game board, but battle was an addiction he couldn’t rid himself of.”

AUTHORITY – “But no firing squad.  You remember those, now, don’t you?  The Army’s way of doing things.  A cold gray dawn before the sun rises, because no man wants to see a shameful death.  That bleak hour of morning when the soul shrivels inside you and the heart has no courage and the body shrinks with terror.  You remember those, don’t you!  A pity.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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