Point of View

The point of view in A Test of Wills is shifting third person limited omniscient. It is called shifting because while the story mainly unfolds from Inspector Ian Rutledge's point of view, the narrative shifts to other characters' points of view to illustrate clues or to give the reader background or internal thoughts. The point of view is third person in that it is told with the "he/she" pronoun. Limited omniscient means that there is sometimes an all-knowing narrator who gives the reader an overall perspective, but more often the narration hones in on what just one character is seeing or doing at that particular moment in the story. Most of the time that character is Rutledge.

The storytelling is a mixture of dialog, exposition, and internal thought. The reader stays focused on what Inspector Rutledge learns with every question and every nuanced answer, even...