A Fearsome Doubt

Book excerpt: “[Charles] Todd’s mysteries are among the most intelligent and affecting being written these days.”—The Washington Post Book World In 1912 Ian Rutledge helped gather the evidence that sent Ben Shaw to the gallows. Now, seven years later, Ben Shaw’s widow brings Rutledge evidence she’s convinced proves her husband’s innocence. Ben Shaw’s past is a tangle of unsettling secrets that may or may not be true. And it grows only more twisted when a seemingly unrelated murder brings Rutledge back to Kent. There an unexpected encounter revives his painful memories of war—and the voice of Hamish MacLeod, the soldier Rutledge was forced to execute. Two elusive killers are on the loose at the same time . . . and to catch them before they catch him, Rutledge will be forced to question everything he believes about right, wrong—and murder. Praise for A Fearsome Doubt “Brilliant . . . Who’d have thought that Charles Todd’s brilliant concept for a mystery . . . would not only continue but grow stronger from book to book.”—Chicago Tribune “Todd raises the stakes in this series to new and nearly unbearable levels.”—The New York Times Book Review “A brilliant and gripping whodunit . . . an outstanding historical mystery and literate period fiction.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)