Charles Todd presents Inspector Ian Rutledge in his sixth outing. The novel presents Rutledge in an even more complex character, not only dealing with the after effects of combat in World War One, but with the possibility that prior to the Great War, he may have sent an innocent man to the gallows.

Ben Shaw was a likable man. He performed acts of kindness to elderly women, performing tasks around their homes that needed doing. He refused to take payment. The problem is that the women whom he helped by keeping up their homes end up dead, smothered with their own pillows. Thrust into the lead investigator's spot when the original Inspector dies of a heart attack, Rutledge puts the pieces together and Shaw is arrested, tried, convicted and executed.

Now, seven years after Shaw's death by hanging, Rutledge is confronted by the dead man's widow, Nell Shaw, who insists she's found evidence that points to another criminal. She insists that Ben Shaw was the victim of a flawed investigation and an over zealous prosecutor. Reopening the case may lead to the end of Rutledge's career. The Yard doesn't like to be shown to have been mistaken.

At the same time, a killer is murdering veterans of World War I. The method is unusual. Each victim has died of an overdose of laudanum, a subtle and seemingly painless form of death. Each victim has lost an arm or leg during the war. Is an angel of mercy putting shattered men out of their misery? Or is there some other reason for their deaths.

Todd injects yet a new character into the mix. Rutledge encounters a man he met on the battlefield of the Somme and regains memories of his time during the war that he had forgotten or deliberately forced from his mind.

All the pieces will come together in the end. Each piece has its place in the puzzle. With each novel, Ian Rutledge becomes a more unique and complicated character whose past is an integral part in the way he approaches the investigation of crime in post World War One England.

Charles Todd (actually a mother and son writing team) becomes more convincing, adroit, and a master of mingling psychological suspense with historical mystery with each successive Ian Rutledge novel.