Wings of Fire

Charles Todd’s mystery/detective fiction Wings of Fire (1998) is the second installment in the Inspector Ian Rutledge Series, preceded by A Test of Wills (1996) and followed by Search in the Dark (1999). The series takes place after WWI and follows Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge as he solves mysteries while dealing with the haunting war memories of his recent past. Themes include loss, the horrors of war, greed, trauma, and guilt.

Wings of Fire continues the story of Inspector Ian Rutledge, an expert detective made famous in an earlier novel, A Test of Wills. Now, Rutledge is faced with traumatic memories and shell shock from his time in France while serving in WWI. This trauma includes the loss of a friend and fellow soldier, Hamish MacLeod, whose voice remains in Rutledge’s mind. While dealing with this shell shock, Rutledge is called on by Supt. Bowles to handle a peculiar case. Rutledge is sent to Borcombe, a village in Cornwall. Lady Rachel Ashford, a member of the important Trevelyan family, has requested Scotland Yard handle the case. Rutledge learns that there has recently been a double-suicide, as well as a death, in the Trevelyan family.

Rutledge must use his wits and detective sleuthing skills to determine the circumstances surrounding these deaths, which include the apparent double-suicide of Olivia Marlowe and her half-brother, Nicholas Cheney. Olivia, who wrote under the name O.A. Manning, was a well-known war poet who was crippled from childhood; she and her half-brother were found dead from laudanum poisoning. Days after their suicides, their half-brother Stephen FitzHugh, himself riddled with injuries from the war, falls down the stairs at Trevelyan Hall and dies after their funerals. Though the deaths don’t seem suspicious to other people, Lady Ashford thinks otherwise. Rutledge must then investigate fact and fiction in an effort to find out the truth behind the family’s tragedies.



While investigating (he’s also interested in uncovering more about Oliva as a poet, as her poetry resonates with him), Rutledge uncovers earlier family secrets, as well as current developments that might weigh heavily on the deaths. For starters, he learns that matriarch Rosamund Trevelyan had died earlier of a laudanum overdose. Rosamund, who had been widowed three times in her troubled life, also had dealt with the accidental death of Olivia’s twin, the eight-year-old Anne, as well as the later disappearance of five-year-old Richard, before her own death.

Adding to the current drama is the fact that Cormac FitzHugh, the son of Rosamund’s last husband, is trying to acquire Trevelyan Hall. Stephen staunchly opposed this acquisition before his death. With all the information from the past and present circumstances combined with the opposition from locals like the police chief, other family members, and the doctor, Rutledge must deal with the ghosts of his past while also dealing with the ghosts of the Trevelyans. By novel’s end, Rutledge as deduced that the deaths are all tied to a decades-long trail of murder.

Some critics have noted that the dense writing bogs down the narrative. This verbiage is complicated by the internal monologues of Inspector Rutledge, which are rendered in his own Scottish accent, with the end result perhaps not worth the amount of time readers must take to sift through the information. Other critics, however, view Wings of Fire as a welcome return of Inspector Ian Rutledge, praising the book for subtle plot twists, likable characters, and beautiful settings.