Charles Todd

This was kind of a slow burn (not in plot -- it jumps right into the sinking of the Britannica hospital ship) but to get to the central mystery. I found it profoundly believable, with really engaging characters in an extremely well-presented version of WWI. I loved how it wasn't centered entirely in London, or Britain, for that matter. I loved the peek behind the scenes of real lives of nurses. There was also something really seductive about the writing -- it haunts me and I keep wanting to show more go back and spend more time with Bess. Manages to keep the balance between the Stiff-upper-lip attitude and the underlying humanity that attitude protects. Very well done period mystery -- really enjoyed it. show less

Not quite a four-star read because the solution to the mystery wasn't exactly fair.

Still and all, the character of Ian Rutledge, shell-shocked veteran of The Great War, is wonderfully realized. He's drawn with care and kindness, yet flawed in his core by the presence of Hamish MacLeod, a dead soldier whose afterlife is inside Rutledge's stressed-out brain. Hamish comes to life when Rutledge thinks he least needs him, but in the end it's Hamish whose voice resonates in the reader's skull long show more after the book is closed. I thought that was gutsy of Todd...making the crazy guy the sleuth and the manifestation of crazy the strong character that he is. Not many writers could pull it off, but Todd can.

As to the mystery itself, well...I had 95% figured out but the big reveal was marred only by its lack of interweaving with the plot. It was a good solution and it was nicely thought out, but it wasn't part of the rest of the book, and I think that's not fair.

Still, I am gaffed in the gills. This is just plain ol' good writing! Recommended because I *love* seeing others suffer the pangs of falling for yet another mystery series. Heh heh. show less

I've enjoyed the other Ian Rutledge mysteries I've read, but this was one of my favorites so far. Mystery/police procedural novels can suffer from too much familiarity and cliche or from gimmicks. Todd sets the Ian Rutledge novels in post-WWI England, which is an interesting historical time period, and the novels reflect that not-so-far-off world quite well, which enough periodic detail to satisfy a historian of the era. The risk Todd makes is that these novels depict Rutledge, a survivor of show more the trenches, as a man on the edge of a mental breakdown. He is "haunted" (more psychologically than supernaturally) by the ghost of Hamish, a Scottish corporal Rutledge had to have executed for refusing to obey orders on the battlefield. Hamish argues with Rutledge, taunts him, reminds him of the hell he suffered in the trenches, and Rutledge's greatest fear is that other people will discover that a dead Scotsman talks inside his brain.

It could be a cheesy device in the hands of a less talented writer. But Todd--which, in reality, is the pen name of a mother-son writing team--is a very good writer. The novels plots are good, but the character of Rutledge--and of his nemesis, Bowles, and all the other characters that appear in these stories--is compelling. A tragic, flawed hero...maybe the best kind.

Definitely worth reading. All of them. show less

While home on leave during World War I, English nurse Bess Crawford uses this time to fulfill a promise made to a dying soldier under her care. Arthur Graham was a favorite patient, and his dying wish was for Bess to deliver a message to his brother, Jonathan. Although Bess doesn't understand the message, she is certain that Arthur was troubled by some family matter that he wanted to put right. Bess's sense of duty leads her to Arthur's family home in Kent, where probing too deeply into the show more family's secrets leads to danger.

Bess is a likeable heroine. She reminds me of nurse Hester Latterly in Anne Perry's William Monk novels. The book also made me think of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie, who gets involved in other people's problems out of a sense of moral obligation. Bess's motivation to investigate the mystery central to the book is her sense of duty, or moral obligation, to the dead soldier she had made a promise to. Bess makes a believable amateur sleuth. Unlike many amateur sleuths in novels, she isn't motivated by insatiable curiosity or disdain for the intelligence of the local police. Her nurses training and her social position as a colonel's daughter allows others to feel comfortable confiding in her. I hope we won't have to wait long for the next book in this series! show less