Quarles finds Evering lying on a bag of money and makes a quick decision. He will take the money and leave his commanding officer to die. Penrith has seen the money which complicates matters. Quarles being the much bolder man, sends Penrith off to get help. While Penrith is gone Quarles murders the surviving men in the company except Evering whom he douses with oil from some lanterns and sets him on fire.

When Penrith returns, Quarles is found moaning in pain from burns received in a fire . Quarles alleges he was trying to pull Evering away from the flames. Penrith is a curate’s son and basically an honest fellow. He knows about the money, however. Quarles convinces him that the money will do none of the rest of the men any good and it could set them up for life.

Twenty years pass. Inspector Ian Rutledge is away from his job at Scotland Yard to attend the wedding of a good friend in Somerset. The day after the festivities, Rutledge is summoned to investigate the death of Harold Quarles because he happens to be in the closest proximity to Cambury where the death had occurred. Rutledge thinks the case should be handled by the local constabulary, but, because Quarles was a prominent London businessman, Rutledge’s superior wants him to cooperate with the locals.

Quarles was a successful businessman but a tough one. As a result he had crossed many men during his career so there are no shortage of suspects. His personal life is not any less complicated. His wife makes no pretension of having any love for her husband, seemingly only staying with him for the sake of their son Marcus. Indeed, the only person who has any good word for the man is Betty Richards, his housekeeper at his country home in Cambury. The fact that Quarles body was found strung up in an elaborate apparatus used in the yearly Christmas pageant leads Rutledge to believe that the death was perpetrated by a local, but collecting hard evidence is an arduous task.

A Matter of Justice is the tenth in a series of mysteries starring Ian Rutledge. It is a solid addition. Although the novel is set in the early 1900’s and the Boer War is a catalyst for the action, the theme of the book is timeless. The title states it well. Even though Harold Quarles is, by most accounts, an unpleasant self-serving individual, it is up to the legal system to dispense justice, not those people who feel that they have been harmed. Rutledge takes his assignment seriously in this respect. A lesser man might have been tempted to pursue the perpetrator less assiduously. After all, the man had obviously inflicted much harm and death upon others.

Another plus of the chosen time period is it forces the detective to use his intellect rather than technological expertise to unravel the mystery. The victim was found in a barn in a remote location. He was apparently severely injured or killed in another location. Ergo, how did the perpetrator transport his victim to the site where he was found? Also the apparatus in which he was found required some expertise to make use of it.

What distinguishes Ian Rutledge from other detectives is his altering Hamish. Hamish appears to be the apparition of a man with whom Rutledge fought in the last war. Hamish was killed and Rutledge suffers from survivor’s guilt as well as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome though, of course, it was not recognized as such in the early 1900’s. The use of Hamish’s voice as a sounding board and sense of caution adds a dimension to the dialogue, but at times it goes overboard.

Another plus of the series is each book can stand on its own. Readers need not know any of Rutledge’s history to enjoy this eleventh in the series with the possible exception of wondering who Hamish is when he is first introduced. The primary characters are as unknown to Rutledge as they are to the reader so there is no need to rehash a back story or be confused about relationships until halfway through the book.

A Matter of Justice gives a nod to the so called Golden Age of mysteries. It is a puzzle that needs to be solved and all the clues are there to work with. There is no excess violence or bodice ripping sex scenes. It is a more cerebral experience for the reader which is a pleasant breath of fresh air.

--Andy Plonka