Ian Rutledge: A Mysterious Profile

By Charles Todd

The New York Times–bestselling author discusses the creation of their beloved English police inspector and his long-running mystery series.
 
Scotland Yard’s Insp. Ian Rutledge made his debut in 1996 with Charles Todd’s historical police procedural A Test of Wills. Many years and cases later, the shell-shocked World War I veteran has won over readers far and wide. But how did such a troubled yet wise character come to be?
 
Writing together as Charles Todd, the mother-son duo of Caroline and Charles Todd, share insights on creating their sleuth and the New York Times–bestselling series. In this essay, they discuss their mutual enthusiasm for history and storytelling, as well as their influences. They share the story of their fateful trip to a Revolutionary War battlefield that inspired them to write a novel together. They also talk about creating Rutledge and his world, working together, and, of course, historical research. Inspector Rutledge fans won’t want to miss this.
 
Praise for Charles Todd and the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries
 
“You’re going to love Todd.” —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly
 
“The melancholy tone that distinguishes the Rutledge series is a reminder that war never ends for the families and friends of lost loved ones. It just retreats into the shadows.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Todd’s Ian Rutledge mysteries are among the most intelligent and affective being written these days.” ―The Washington Post Book World
 
“Evocative . . . An absorbing mystery.” ―Orlando Sentinel
 
“[A] profound and insightful rendering of a Britain between the wars.” ― Hartford Courant
 
“Exceptionally clever plot . . . As always, Todd . . . deepen[s] their crafty whodunit with a moving exploration of their astute sleuth’s inner torments.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074636

Charles Todd

Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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Ian Rutledge

A Mysterious Profile

Charles Todd

Ian Rutledge

It’s hard to say where Ian Rutledge came from. He sprang, rather like Minerva from Zeus’s brow, fully grown. Only in this instance, Zeus had two

heads: Caroline and Charles working together.

It has been a winding road toward this collaboration.

The beginning was probably as simple as both of us growing up in a family of storytellers. When you sit on a porch on a warm summer’s evening, listening to your elders talking about the past, watching fireflies light the night, mesmerized by the soft creak of a rocking chair, it’s easy to fall under the spell of a world you’ve never seen except in your imagination.

That imagination was most certainly fed by reading—we were also a family of voracious readers, books everywhere in the house, something about nearly everything from the American Civil War to a study of zebras in East Africa. It’s our opinion that favorite authors tend to shape one’s taste in books. Favorite stories stick in the mind because they offer something that captures the fancy and thus become a part of our literary memory.