A Christmas Witness is a self-contained standalone long novella in the Inspector Rutledge historical mystery series by Charles Todd. Released 21st Oct 2025 by Penzler on their Mysterious Press imprint, it's 216 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout.
This is a poignant Christmas themed story with Rutledge being sent to Kent to smooth the ruffled feathers of an important local man who insists he's being targeted and will likely not make it through the holiday season alive. The characters in the original series are nuanced and delightful. This novella doesn't feature many of them except Rutledge himself.
Some background history. The original series (and this is book 24.5) was a very successful, long running collaborative effort between a mother and son. Caroline Todd (the mother) passed away in 2021 and this particular novella is not up to the standards of the regular books in the series. There are fundamental differences in Rutledge's behavior and motivations, and they're quite noticeable.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 4 hours 18 minutes and is read by Stephen Crossley. He has a well modulated tenor voice and does a variable job with the read. The secondary characters and disparate accents are very well done. His voice reading Rutledge himself varies quite astonishingly much, often quite high and oddly breathy, sometimes more like series narrator Samuel Gillies' interpretation. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read.
Three and a half stars. It would possibly be a good choice for die hard (loyal) fans of the original series, or for a buddy/book club discussion (evolution of series over long periods, changes in collaborative efforts with the loss of collaborators, etc).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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