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Inglenook Book Club November News

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The Inglenook Book Club met in November at the McKenzie Farmer’s Market with 13 members present. The club extends thanks and appreciation to Jennifer Waldrup of the City of McKenzie for letting us make use of this facility for our meetings. Members wore masks, observed social distancing, and brought their own drinks.
All Inglenook club members are shocked and saddened at the sudden death last month of our member, Debbie Riley, and we extend sympathy to her daughter, Lauren, and the rest of Debbie’s family. The book club has donated a sum of money to the McKenzie Memorial Library in her memory.
Members celebrating November birthdays are Carolyn Goodwin and Sally Sutton.
Jean McKinnie reported that the pending meeting with the Paris book club has been tabled for the time being due to the pandemic.
Under New Business, discussion took place concerning whether or not to meet in December because of the continuing surge of COVID-19. It was decided that we would meet, since we now have the availability of the Farmer’s Market. In place of exchanging Christmas gifts, money will be collected for a project to provide food and other items for needy school children. Genia Sherwood will coordinate this project.
Shirley Martin presented a most interesting program on a series of books written by Charles Todd, the pen-name used by American authors mother-and-son team, Caroline and Charles Todd. Their first debut novel, A Test of Wills, was published in 1996 and is the first of 25 books set in post-World War I England featuring the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge.
Rutledge is a veteran of the European campaigns who is attempting to pick up the pieces of his Scotland Yard career. However, he must keep his greatest burden a secret: suffering from what was then called “shell shock,” he lives with the constant, cynical, taunting voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier he had had to execute on the battlefield for refusing to fight.

Unlike his mother Caroline, Charles Todd never felt any desire to write. But history has always been his passion, and war is history in action. When Caroline first suggested writing a battlefield mystery together, he was immediately interested. They have learned to write very well together, despite the fact that Caroline lives in North Carolina and he in Delaware. Charles had been interested in the World War I period ever since visiting England at age 14. It took them two years to learn how to write together; Charles’s dad was their proofreader and his sister the researcher and photographer.
In developing their Rutledge character, Charles felt the most intriguing concept was someone who had worked as a policeman, then gone off to war and returned to pick up the threads of his job. How does killing affect a man who hunts killers? What strengths or weaknesses came out of the trenches? How had war changed him psychologically? Very few people came out of the Great War unscathed.
Hamish McLeod, Rutledge’s “ghost,” is many things, but most particularly the guilt of surviving when seemingly better men died. The point of the books is not to depress or shock readers. It’s a defining of the human spirit, of one man striving to triumph over his nightmares. Rutledge is any of us who has to pick up the pieces after personal devastation, anyone with the courage to face his demons.
The latest Ian Rutledge novel is A Divided Loyalty published this year. Caroline and Charles Todd are also authors of a series about Bess Crawford, a nurse serving in France during World War I. There are 11 novels so far in this series, the first, A Duty to the Dead, and the latest A Cruel Deception published in 2019.
When asked if any of their books had been adapted for television or film, the reply was “we don’t want to give up control of our characters. We don’t want a film or TV writer to take them where they wouldn’t have gone in real life, just because it might make a more dramatic scene. Everyone says both series would work well for the PBS “Masterpiece Theatre,” and we can see that very easily.”
Our next meeting is December 9 at the Farmer’s Market.
There were no announcements. After the book passing, the meeting adjourned.
Members present were Victoria Ard, Linda Edge, Carolyn Goodwin, Suzanne Howell, Geneva Johnson, Shirley Martin, Jean McKinnie, Carolyn Moore, Mary Newman, Gaye Rowan, Genia Sherwood, Sally Sutton, and Donna Ward.