The Gate Keeper, Todd - B+

                     This is the 20th book in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series; it is set in the week before Christmas in 1920. I have praised the authors in the past for their fine understanding of the Great War and its impact on post-war English society. Unlike many of its predecessors, this book's plot does not hinge on the war, but a matter much older, the death of a soldier in the Boer War. These stories are almost always excellent and it is fun to read a book where instead of instant communications and information, the protagonist tries to solve multiple murders in a village with a single telephone.