Murder in the midst of war

An Unmarked Grave, Charles Todd

This is the fourth book in a series of mysteries set during World War I, whose main character and narrator, Bess Crawford, is an English nurse serving in France. Caring for the wounded in the field, or escorting convalescents home, she becomes involved in their lives and their problems, which usually end with someone murdered. Bess frequently turns for help to her father, a retired Army colonel now working with the War Office, who has connections and sources all over Britain. She also relies on Simon Brandon, once her father's Regimental Sergeant Major, who has remained close to the family and also works with the War Office.

As this book opens, it is the spring of 1918, and the Spanish Influenza is decimating the Army and the medical staff, as well as the civilian populations. One evening, the orderly on duty asks Bess to come with him to take the body of its most recent victim to the temporary morgue. Despite her exhaustion, she follows him into a room full of bodies. There he shows her one that she recognizes, Vincent Carson, from her father's former regiment. This man died not of influenza, but from a broken neck. Hours later, Bess herself falls victim to the influenza, and it is weeks before she remembers the body. She learns first that Major Carson was reported killed in action, and then that the orderly who took her to his body hung himself that same night. These are the first in a string of mysterious deaths. It becomes clear that someone is hunting down those with any connection to Major Carson, or to the field hospital that night. Bess herself becomes the killer's target. As before, she moves back and forth between England and France, between service and leave, as she works with the Colonel her father and Simon Brandon to catch the killer.

I have to say that I found this book rather confusing. There are a lot of characters, some introduced only as victims, and it was hard to keep them straight. It was also a challenge to follow the constant shifts in location. I found myself wondering at the ease with which Bess could move back and forth, even with her father's connections. The killer also moves at will around the battlefields, towns and hospitals of France, stealing supplies, uniforms, and cars - presumably under cover of the chaos of war, which must also explain how he is able to murder so many people and escape undetected. But I found his motive, and the solution of the mystery, to be a bit disappointing in the end.

In the last case, A Bitter Truth, Bess found an ally in an Australian sergeant, who made his interest in her clear as he helped to solve her case. This time, she finds an American, recovering from wounds received while fighting with a Canadian unit. He too becomes attached to Bess while acting as her assistant and, briefly, bodyguard. Bess seems impervious to both of them. Her nursing and detective work apparently leave her no time or inclination for personal relationships beyond friendships, or much of a social life. This may be because of her attachment to Simon Brandon, though the exact nature of their relationship remains frustratingly ambiguous. They care deeply for each other, though there doesn't seem to be much romantic tension. Perhaps Bess really means it when she describes Simon as "Half confessor, half godfather, half friend, half elder brother." With this book ending in the summer of 1918, perhaps the next book will see the end of the war. It will be interesting to see where Bess's life takes her then, and with whom.

A family's bitter truths

A Bitter Truth, Charles Todd

This is the most recent in a series of mysteries featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse serving in France during the Great War.  Over the past couple of months, I've read and posted about the two earlier books, A Duty to the Dead and An Impartial Witness.

As this book opens in mid-December 1917, Bess has arrived in London on leave, planning to spend Christmas with her family at their Somerset home.  In the doorway of the house where she shares a flat, she finds a woman taking shelter from the wind and cold.  Her voice and clothing are those of a woman of means.  Bess insists that she come inside, out of the weather, which she reluctantly does.  The cause of her reluctance is written on her face; she has clearly been hit, leaving a black eye and other bruising.

The woman, who says her name is Lydia, eventually relaxes enough to tell Bess that it was her husband, a serving officer, who is on compassionate leave following his brother's death.  After he struck her, she walked out of their home in Sussex and went to London, with no clear plan in mind, simply to get away.  She begs Bess to come with her back to Sussex, where they live with his widowed grandmother and mother, so that she doesn't have to face him alone.  Bess agrees, though it means her visit home will be cut short.

At Lydia's home, Vixen Hall, the family has gathered with friends for the ceremony of placing her brother-in-law's tombstone.  The problems between Lydia and her husband Roger, with her bruises still clearly visible, add to an already complicated family situation.  Then, on the day Bess is to leave for her home, one of the guests is found murdered.  Initially considered one of the suspects, Bess eventually returns to duty in France, but she remains connected to the case.  At Lydia's request, she is searching for what may be the key to it: the child of an English officer and a French mother, abandoned to an orphanage after her mother's death, who is said to bear a striking resemblance to a member of the Ellis family.

As in An Impartial Witness, Bess moves back and forth between France and England.  In France, her nursing duties leave her little spare time.  But she talks to the soldiers coming into her field hospital, using her connections and the network of the army to gather information about the Ellis family and to try to track the child.  In England, she again relies on Simon Brandon, an NCO in her father's regiment, retired now from the army, who has become part of their family.  I'm still confused about their relationship, though it seems less intense in this book than in An Impartial Witness.  On the other hand, in France Bess meets an Australian soldier, Sergeant Larimore, who helps her search for the child but makes it clear that he has a more personal interest, in Bess herself.  Is a colonial sergeant a better match for a colonel's daughter than her father's former regimental sergeant major?  I'll be interested to see what Simon, and the Colonel, make of the sergeant.  In the meantime, after reading about Bess's work, as well as Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth and Helen Dore Boylston's "Sister," I want to read more about nursing in the Great War.

A conviction that justice must be done

An Impartial Witness, Charles Todd

This is the second book in a mystery series set in World War I, featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse serving on the front lines in France.  I posted about the first, A Duty to the Dead, a couple of weeks ago.  A Bitter Truth, the third book in the series, has just been published.

As An Impartial Witness opens, it is early summer, 1917.  Bess has returned to England with a convoy of wounded soldiers.  Among them is Lt. Meriwether Evanson, a severely burned flyer whose will to live is sustained by the thought of his wife Marjorie; her photo is pinned to his uniform.  After settling her patients at their hospital in Hampshire, Bess travels on to London.  Leaving the train station, she recognizes Lt. Evanson's wife, standing with an army officer, clearly in distress and openly sobbing.  The man makes no move to comfort her and eventually leaves her to catch a train. Bess tries to follow her out of the station but loses her in the crowds.

Weeks later, back in France, Bess comes across an old newspaper article asking the public's help in solving the murder of Marjorie Evanson, who was killed later that same day.  Bess immediately writes to Scotland Yard to offer her information, and from there she is drawn into the case, especially when she learns that Lt. Evanson killed himself on learning of his wife's death.  As in A Duty to the Dead, Bess feels a responsibility for "her" patients that goes far beyond their physical care, and a conviction that justice must be done. When an old friend of Marjorie's is accused of her murder, Bess believes him to be innocent and immerses herself in investigation, over the wishes of both her family and the lead investigator.

Unlike the first book, which was set mainly in England, the story in this book moves between France and England.  We see Bess on duty in the field hospitals, with all the difficulties and dangers of life on the front lines.  She can only pursue her investigations during her leaves, and though she manages more time than most of her fellow nurses, she is still caught in the discipline of the service.  When she does make it to England, her family naturally expects her to spend time at home with them.  Her parents did not play a large part in the first book, though we met her father, a retired army officer whom Bess and her mother refer to as "Colonel Sahib."  Here they are an important part of the story, as is another member of their family, Simon Brandon. 

I don't quite know what to make of Simon.  Originally the Colonel's batman, through long years of service he became the regimental sergeant-major and a friend of the family.  Retired from the army like the Colonel, he lives in a house close to Bess's parents, and he and the Colonel are involved in confidential war work.  Bess describes him as "Half confessor, half godfather, half friend, half elder brother," someone she has known all her life and dearly loves.  For much of the book, he is at her side, arguing with her, trying to get her to drop her investigation, but in the end using his contacts to find information, as well as offering comfort and advice.  Since Bess narrates these stories, we have only her point of view, and I can't decide if I'm reading too much into their interactions, or if Bess does not understand her own feelings.  I am also not sure how the social code of the time would see a relationship between a colonel's daughter and her father's former batman. Perhaps the next book will make things clearer.  I'm looking forward to it, because I like these characters and these well-told stories.

A soldier's last request

A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd

I have never read anything by this author before, or I should say authors, since "Charles Todd" is a mother & son writing team, Caroline and Charles Todd.  I was at a "Mystery Author Luncheon" the other day, naturally hosted by Murder by the Book.  I didn't know anyone else at the table where I was seated, but we all fell into an easy conversation about books that lasted through the luncheon, an exchange of reviews and recommendations, and a constant refrain of "Have you read this?"  It was such a treat for me, because I rarely get to talk books with such enthusiastic readers.

Charles Todd was one of the names that came highly recommended.  I found out later that they have written a series of twelve books featuring a Great War veteran who resumes his career at Scotland Yard after demobilisation.  They have a second series whose main character, Bess Crawford, is a nurse in the war.  I've become interested in reading about World War I from fictional accounts of the war's effects like Laurie R. King's Folly and Justice Hall, and particularly after reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. Since I'd recently read Helen Dore Boylston's account of war nursing in France, "Sister", I decided to try the first Bess Crawford mystery, A Duty to the Dead.

The story opens in November of 1916, with Bess traveling on a hospital ship to collect wounded soldiers.  The ship is the Britannic, which strikes a mine and sinks in the seas off Greece.  Despite a badly-broken arm, Bess makes it into a lifeboat, is rescued, and returns to England to recuperate.  There she finally faces a promise she made to a dying soldier, Arthur Graham, to give his brother an intriguing message: "Tell my brother Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right."  When Bess travels to Kent to meet the Graham family and fulfill her duty to the dead, she stumbles into family secrets, including an older brother confined in an asylum for murder.  She is compelled to learn more about the family, and to try to unravel Arthur's last words.

Every character in the book is touched by the war, but the story has less to do with the war itself than I expected.  The mystery kept me guessing (wrongly, as usual) and turning the pages to find out what happened next.  Though her background is only sketched in, Bess is an interesting character and good company.  I'll be interested to see where the next book in the series takes her (a third has just been published).