Proof of Guilt: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard must contend with two dangerous enemies in New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd's Proof of Guilt.

When an unidentified body is found run down on a quiet Chelsea street, the only clue on the victim is an expensive gold pocket watch from Lisbon. Tracing the timepiece to the wine merchants French, French & Traynor, Rutledge discovers that the firm’s English director has vanished from his Essex estate.

Can Rutledge solve the apparent murder of a top wine merchant while dealing with interference from his superior, the new Acting Chief Superintendent?

Rutledge pursues a trail of deceit stretching to the island of Madeira, facing a hostile superior eager to see him stumble. Haunted at every turn by the spectral voice of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, he must untangle the dead man’s identity before the inquiry slips beyond his control.

Readers of Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford books and London-based Ian Rutledge mysteries will be thrilled with Proof of Guilt, clue by clue.

• Police Procedural: Sergeant Gibson and Inspector Rutledge sift through missing persons reports from Kent to Norfolk while tracking an abandoned motorcar hidden in a Surrey chalk quarry.
• Small Town Setting: In the quiet Essex village of Stratford St. Hilary, Rutledge navigates bitter local tensions surrounding Lewis French’s sudden split from Valerie Whitman and his hasty courtship of a doctor’s daughter.
• Race Against Time: As partner Matthew Traynor voyages from Madeira to salvage the firm, Rutledge races to uncover a decades-old vendetta before wrongful suspicion claims an innocent life.
• Also by This Author: A Test of Wills, A Game of Fear and The Gate Keeper.