A Fearsome Doubt

A Fearsome Doubt revisits a case from Rutledge's past: in 1912, he helped convict Ben Shaw for the murders of several elderly women. Now, years after the hanging, Shaw's widow arrives with evidence suggesting her husband was innocent, forcing Rutledge to question his own judgment at the very moment a new set of murders appears in Kent. Todd frames the investigation as a dual reckoning, with Rutledge measuring both his professional legacy and the war's toll on his reliability as a witness to his own actions.

Samuel Gillies gives this darker-than-usual entry a steady, reflective tone that suits Rutledge's state of mind. The interplay between the old case and the new crime benefits from Gillies's ability to hold the moral uncertainty without collapsing into melodrama, and the anniversary-of-the-Armistice setting adds a weight that he delivers with appropriate restraint.