River of Darkness

I have been remiss in posting my own reading, partly because I have been busy writing reviews for Children's Literature Database and partly because...well....I'm retired and just being lazy. Anyway, heard about this book on Powell's "Daily Dose" and got it from the local library (good for me!) and then tore through it in just about 3 sessions, staying up late into the wee hours to finish. Rennie Airth has apparently written a couple of other mysteries before embarking on this trilogy with the main character being an English WWI veteran, John Madden. In this first of the series, Madden has returned from the war haunted by nightmares and generally experiencing what we now call post-traumatic stress but which was then known as shell shock. He lost his wife and baby to influenza before the war and then saw hundreds of soldiers brutally mown down in the trenches of France. He has given up his dream of farming and returned to being a policeman, actually a detective at Scotland Yard, working for a former colleague, Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair. Madden gets called to a brutal multiple murder in a manor house located in a quiet village of Surrey. It turns out that most of the victims were bayonetted, while the wife had her throat cut. Sinclair and Madden pursue their intuitions that this is not a case of robbery gone wrong, but the work of an organized single individual,  probably a former soldier. They must push against politics at Scotland Yard, a cover up by the military, as well as the unknown motivation of the killer. The character of Madden takes on real form and complexity in this first installment and I am looking forward to reading the next two books to see what he gets up to. Other characters, including Madden's new love interest, Dr. Helen Blackwell, are also well-developed and intriguing in their own right. Dana Stabenow, also a wonderful author, has a nice overview of all 3 books in the trilogy here.