Tales by Charles Todd © 2015, stories originally published 2010- 2014, Harper-Collins, Witness Impulse imprint, 2015 trade paperback
mystery short story collection – Ian Rutledge, Bess Crawford
This thin (159 page) collection features two of Todd’s series characters, Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford, supplying two stories for each. The stories are each about twenty pages in length, and the book also has a preview of the Crawford mystery, A Pattern of Lies, the next (at the time) novel in that series.
These stories are quite enjoyable, and I found myself wanting more of them. Hopefully, in the future, more will be collected. I found this book to be quite satisfactory, and led me to read the first novel in the Crawford series, A Duty to the Dead, which I enjoyed. Also, I can’t remember if I’ve read the first of the Ian Rutledge books, but it’s on the shelf. So this collection does what any good one does, it makes the reader want more of the author’s work.
Contents:
- Introduction
- “The Kidnapping” (Rutledge)
- “The Girl on the Beach” (Rutledge)
- “Cold Comfort” (Crawford)
- “The Maharani’s Pearls” (Crawford)
- Excerpt from A Pattern of Lies (Crawford) – chapters 1 and 2.
Tip the Wink 
I did read the first Rutledge book but never felt the urge to read another. I will definitely be looking for this one, however, especially as I’ve considered trying their other series. I’ve read a number of their short stories in EQMM.
I liked this enough to try the first Bess Crawford, which I thought was pretty good. I’m not in a rush to read another, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility.
OK. I went on the library website, they had both “real” books and ebooks, and I was able to download a copy to the Kindle.
I read a few Charles Todd novels. They were okay. This book looks familiar. It might have been one of the free books at BOUCHERCON.
If I got it as a freebie at a Bouchercon, it would have been San Fran. Otherwise it was a handout at a later one I didn’t attend.