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From the brilliantly imaginative New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd comes an unforgettable new character in an exceptional new series
England, 1916. Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. Growing up in India, she learned the importance of responsibility, honor, and duty from her officer father. At the outbreak of World War I, she followed in his footsteps and volunteered for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic.
On one voyage, Bess grows fond of the young, gravely wounded Lieutenant Arthur Graham. Something rests heavily on his conscience, and to give him a little peace as he dies, she promises to deliver a message to his brother. It is some months before she can carry out this duty, and when she's next in England, she herself is recovering from a wound.
When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference. Neither his mother nor his brother Timothy seems to think it has any significance. Unsettled by this, Bess is about to take her leave when sudden tragedy envelops her. She quickly discovers that fulfilling this duty to the dead has thrust her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder that will endanger her own life and test her courage as not even war has.
The winning first in a new WWI series from the bestselling mother-son Todds (A Matter of Justice and 10 other Inspector Rutledge mysteries) introduces Bess Crawford, a resourceful British army nurse who's injured when her ship is sunk in 1916. While convalescing in England, Bess is tormented because she's put off delivering a message from Arthur Graham, a dying soldier under her care for whom she'd developed strong feelings, to his family. Her own brush with death prompts her to travel to Kent and transmit Arthur's cryptic last words to one of his three brothers. Bess becomes further enmeshed in the family's affairs after she learns the obscure message may relate to Graham's half-brother, Peregrine, who was committed to a local asylum for a girl's murder years before. The more Bess seeks to sate her curiosity, the more she suspects that the truth about the murder was suppressed. Fans of independent women sleuths like Maisie Dobbs will welcome this new addition to their ranks. (Sept.)
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Charles Todd is the author of nine Ian Rutledge mysteries—A Pale Horse, A False Mirror, A Long Shadow, A Cold Treachery, A Fearsome Doubt, Watchers of Time, Legacy of the Dead, Search the Dark, Wings of Fire, and A Test of Wills—and one stand-alone novel. They are a mother-and-son writing team and live in Delaware and North Carolina, respectively.
A Duty to the Dead
A Bess Crawford Mystery
Chapter One
Tuesday, 21 November, 1916. 8:00 A.M.
At sea . . . This morning the sun is lovely and warm. All the portholes below are open, to allow what breeze there is to blow through the lower decks and air them. With no wounded onboard to keep us occupied, we are weary of one another's company. Beds are made up, kits readied, duties done. Since Gibraltar I've written to everyone I know, read all the books I could borrow, and even sketched the seabirds. Uneventful is the password of the day.
I lifted my pen from the paper and stared out across the blue water. I'd posted letters during our coaling stopover in Naples, and there wasn't much I could add about the journey since then. I'd already mentioned the fact that Greece was somewhere over the horizon and likely to stay there. Someone had sighted dolphins off the bow just after first light, and I'd mentioned that too. What else? Oh, yes.
We discovered a bird's nest in one of the lifeboats, no idea how long it had been there or if the hatching was successful. Or what variety of bird it might have been. Margaret, one of the nursing sisters, claimed it must surely be the Ancient Mariner's albatross, and we spent the next half hour trying to think what we should name our unknown guest. Choices ranged from Coleridge to the Kaiser, but my personal favorite was Alice in Wonderland.
I always tried to keep my letters cheerful, even when the wards were filled with wounded, and we were working late into the night, fighting to save the worst cases. My worries weren'tto be shared. At home and in the trenches, letters were a brief and welcome respite from war. It was better that way. And now we were in the Kea Channel, just off the Greek coast at Cape Sounion, and steaming toward our final destination at Lemnos. It was the collection point for wounded from Greek Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. There, post could be sent on through the Army. I'd grown rather superstitious about writing to friends as often as I could. I'd learned too well just how precious time was, and how easily someone slipped away, dying days or weeks before I heard the news. My only consolation was that a letter might have reached them and made them smile a little while they were still living, or comforted them in their last hours. God knew, the Battle of the Somme over the summer had been such a bloodbath no one could say with any certainty how many men we'd lost. I could put a face to far too many names on those casualty lists. A gull flew up to land on the railing close by me, an eye fixed on me. Most were nearly tame, begging for handouts. In the distance, over the bird's shoulder, was a smudge that must be Kea. The sea here was a sparkling blue and calm, Britannic's frothy wake the only disturbance as far as the eye could see in any direction. Sailing between the island and the mainland was a shortcut that saved miles and miles of travel.
Or as Captain Bartlett had told me on my first voyage out, "Keep Cape Sounion on your left and Kea on your right, and you can't go wrong." And so I looked for it every voyage thereafter, like a marker in the sea.
One of Britannic's officers paused by my deck chair, and the gull took flight with an annoyed squawk. "I see you're already enjoying the morning air, Miss Crawford. The last time we passed through here, it was pouring rain. You could hardly see your hand before your face. Remember?"
Browning was sun browned, broad shouldered, and handsome in his uniform. We'd formed a friendship of sorts during the voyages out, flirting a little to pass the time. Neither of us took it seriously.
"Much pleasanter than France this time of year," I replied, smiling up at him. "No mud."
He laughed. "And no one firing at you. We should be safe as houses soon." "That's good to hear." But I knew he was lying. It was a game all of us played, pretending that German U-boats weren't a constant threat. Even hospital ships like Britannic were not safe from them, despite our white paint and great red crosses. They were said to believe that we hid fresh troops among the wounded or stowed munitions in the hold amongst the medical supplies. There was no truth to their suspicions, of course. And this channel was well traveled, always a temptation. For that matter, mines paid no heed to the nationality or purpose of the hull above them, when a vessel sailed too near. You couldn't dwell on it, or you'd live in fear.
He moved on, overseeing the change of the watch, and I capped my pen.
There was something about his laugh that reminded me of
Arthur Graham. When it caught me unawares, as it had done just now, the gates of memory opened and Arthur's face would come back to me.
During training, we'd been warned about letting ourselves care too much for our patients. "They are yours to comfort, yours to heal, but not yours to dream about," Matron had told us firmly. "Only foolish girls let themselves be drawn into romantic imaginings. See that you are not one of them."
Good advice. But Matron hadn't foreseen Arthur Graham. He'd been popular with the other wounded, the medical orderlies, and the nursing staff. It was impossible not to like him, and liking him, it was impossible not to feel something for him as he fought a gallant but losing battle with death. I wasn't foolish enough to believe it was love, but I was honest enough to admit I cared more than I should. I'd watched so many wounded die. Perhaps that was why I desperately wanted to see this one man snatch a victory out of defeat and restore my faith in the goodness of God. But it wasn't to be.
And truth be told, I had more than one reason for remembering Arthur Graham and his laugh. There was a promise I'd made. Freely.
If you gave your word so freely, my conscience argued, then why have you never kept your promise?
"There's been no opportunity!" I said the words aloud, then in embarrassment turned to see if anyone had overheard me.
Liar. You never made the time.
It isn't true-
You traveled through Kent on your last leave. You could have kept it then.
A Duty to the DeadAnonymous
Posted November 12, 2010
I have been a devoted reader of the Massie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. A Duty to the Dead is of the same genre. The heroine Bess Crawford is very likable. Hopefully there will be more in this series. The book held me from the beginning to the end. Well written. Very unusual that a mother and son would write such an engaging book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.In 1916, British army nurse Bess Crawford is injured when the hospital ship she is on is hit. However while she recovers she promised dying soldier Arthur Graham she would deliver his last words to his brother Jonathan that he lied for their mother's sake.
Believing strongly she owes A DUTY TO THE DEAD, Bess heads to Kent to transmit the message. She learns that another brother of Arthur, Peregrine, has been locked up in an asylum since he was a young teen for murdering the housemaid; he is also dying from pneumonia and desperately needs expert nursing; Bess agrees to provide it and after spending some time with her new patient concludes he is sane though he has selective amnesia not recalling the tragedy that condemned him. As she tends to Peregrine, another patient of hers commits suicide, but something about the death disturbs Bess. When Peregrine recovers much of his health, he flees taking Bess with him as he tries to regain his lost memory of what happened to Lily. Bess further learns of other suspicious deaths since Peregrine was locked away that makes her suspect other family members including her favorite patient, the late Arthur.
Although Inspector Rutledge takes a needed rest, fans will enjoy this strong WWI village amateur sleuth starring a spunky lead character, reminiscent of Winspear's Maisie Dobbs early years, caught in the middle of a family drama. The story line brings out the horrors of war through Bess' ailing and dying patients while the whodunit is cleverly devised so the audience and the nurse will keep guessing until the climax. Charles Todd has started another winning historical mystery series.
Harriet Klausner
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.gabook
Posted August 17, 2011
I really enjoyed this book. Very suspenseful. Will keep you guessing till the end!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.jmleahyjr
Posted August 14, 2010
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The Mother-Son writing team has a new, very different sleuth in the same World War I era . Their young nurse is a departure from their war veteran, Inspector Rutledge, who continually contends with a mind damaged by the war as he solves murders for an unappreciative superior. She also lives and works in that time of change from the more rigid social structures of Edwardian Britain to the developing social openness and awareness of post-World War I. And she asserts herself with determination to set right what she sees to be wrong. As in the Inspector Rutledge series, the story's setting is brought to life by the author. For people who enjoy reading about that time and reading the intricate and colorful mysteries of Charles Todd but occasionally wish for adventures without Rutledge's baggage from the war, the new heroine provides an opportunity to see the same locations and institutions through feminine, less-troubled eyes while solving the same manner of challenging mystery.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 5, 2010
This was a great book. An easy one to follow and an easy one to fall in love with the main character, a nurse who survives her ship sinking to keep a promise she made to a dying patient. She is superbly written and I wait anxiously for Book 2. It is so easy to read you feel like you are there with the nurse. Worth reading.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.mandersj
Posted April 12, 2010
I find it odd that a mother/son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States have chosen to tell stories about England in the early 1900s, however they seem to make it work. Writing under the pen name Charles Todd, this duo has a bestselling series about Ian Rutledge and is venturing out with a new character, war nurse Bess Crawford in "A Duty to the Dead."
Bess is on active duty during WWI on a hospital ship when a dying soldier makes her promise to take a message back to his family, "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right," he tells her.
Soon after, the ship she is on is sunk by a mine and Bess makes it out alive, although suffering from a broken arm. During her convalescence she decides she needs to deliver the dying soldier's message to its rightful recipient. Bess's father, a highly decorated retired soldier, worries about her injuries, as well as her wanting to carry out her new mission. Against her father's wishes, Bess travels by train to the town where the family lives, then is taken by horse drawn carriage to their home.
Upon arriving, she is taken directly to her room, where she retires for the evening. The next day she meets the dead soldier's mother as well as two of his three brothers. She decides to wait until she can speak with his brother Jonathan privately to deliver the message. While waiting for the appropriate moment, she finds much time to roam around the town and meet various townfolk. She loves to talk, and tries to gather background on the soldier's family as she meets people. She also gets dragged into a situation where the local doctor is treating a wounded soldier who has returned home and is suffering from shell shock.
When Bess finally is able to deliver her message, Jonathan acts like he has no idea what it means. Bess is disappointed to have gone through all this for naught, and decides to leave the following day. However, as fate would have it, the third brother falls sick and is sent home from the mental asylum where he had been institutionalized since childhood, in order to die in his home. Bess ends up staying on to make sure he dies comfortably.
Bess ends up nursing this brother back to health, beyond anyone's expectations, and when he is lucid he tells her things that pique her curiosity and make her decide to begin an investigation into what the dying soldier really meant with his message.
An extremely slow-starting story, this turned out to be worth the read. I would hope that in further installations of this character, the author(s) would get to the point of the story much more quickly, as the real mystery of this book didn't reveal itself until over halfway through.
PASantoro
Posted January 23, 2010
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I have been reading the books of Charles Todd since I picked up the first one several years ago. I always look forward to them eagerly. Ian Rutledge is a character you can admire while sympathizing with his pain. I have already read "The Red Door," and will be impatient to read the next installment.
Bess Crawford is a breath of fresh air and, like Rutledge, easy to like and admire. These characters feel very human to me and very real. I think, eventually, the charactes will overlap (we already have seen Bess's aunt in "The Red Door.") It's a nice touch.
I strongly recommend all of Charles Todd's books.
I have also recommended Anne Perry's "We Shall Sleep", just one in her WWI series. I recommend them all. "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" was a wonderful surprise and a terrific story. I have learned more about WWI in these books than I ever learned in school.
I don't read a lot of historical fiction and I've never read anything by Charles Todd. After reading A Duty to the Dead, I have to say that I've been missing out. Todd is a brilliant writer. He weaves an old-fashioned mystery around a World War I nurse. Todd does a masterful job of immersing the reader in the characters' world. You will feel like you've stepped out of the 21st century and back into the early 1900s. A truly enjoyable read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The mother and son writing team known as Charles Todd has written 11 highly acclaimed Ian Rutledge mysteries, each recognized for scrupulous attention to historic detail, careful plotting, well developed characters, and riveting psychological suspense. The same is true of A DUTY TO THE DEAD in which Todd introduces a new series featuring Bess Crawford.
While Bess lived in 1916 she's more than a match for any contemporary mystery heroine. The daughter of a highly principled and equally highly disciplined officer she inherited these qualities in large doses. It is 1916 and Bess follows in her father's footsteps by serving as a nurse in the Great War. During training she is cautioned about becoming too fond of her patients. "They are yours to comfort, yours to heal, but not yours to dream about." Nonetheless, Arthur Graham found a special place in her heart, and she made a deathbed promise to him, a vow to take a brief, rather cryptic message to his brother, Jonathan.
However, it is some time before she can keep that promise as when our story opens she is aboard the ill-fated hospital ship Britannic. Todd's description of the explosion that rocks the ship and the ensuing sinking is intense, gripping. Bess suffers a broken arm but does manage to find a place in a lifeboat and is eventually sent to England for recoveryr. It is then that she goes to Arthur's home in Kent.
While at first she is welcomed warmly Bess is astute; she recognizes a sorely fragmented family. There is Arthur's widowed mother, a domineering matriarch. Jonathan is a lieutenant who has suffered a facial wound, another brother, Timothy, who was born with a clubfoot and appears bitter because he could not join the service. A third brother, Peregrine, is at the heart of the mystery; he has been held in a mental asylum since the age of fourteen - a confinement that we learn was arranged by his mother. To compound matters there is the mysterious Robert, a cousin, who is omnipresent.
While a guest in the Graham's home Bess is confronted with numerous challenges, not the least of which is assisting the local doctor in caring for a shell shocked soldier. She learns the matrix of small village life - secrets kept, gossip rampant, an aversion to strangers.
A DUTY TO THE DEAD is an atmospheric rendering of wartime England, a sterling suspense tale and an unforgettable picture of the horrors of war.
- Gail Cooke
Anonymous
Posted November 11, 2009
I have read all of Charles Todd's books and have never been disappointed.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.lola46
Posted October 26, 2009
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After reading the entire Inspector Ian Rutledge series, I was ready for this newest addition from Charles Todd. A female detective who doesn't disappoint set in one of my favorite era's. Enjoy!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 17, 2009
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Ian Rutledge of Todds other novels always keeps me wanting to read more so I wondered about this new charater, to my delight she did and I look forward to the next one in the series.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 10, 2009
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Charles Todd, the talented mother/son writing team whose eleven Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries are so popular, have created a new character who is as unique as Rutledge.
When a series is successful, it's a challenge to create a new character that will be as popular as the currently running series. Bess Crawford, an English nurse serving on the battlefields of WWI France, sees demons but in a different way from Rutledge (Todd's other series character). Crawford's creation in this book is a great introduction and will provide Todd's readers with another major character.
Bess Crawford has a crush on a dying soldier she's nursing. She promises to take a verbal message to the soldier's brother. On her cruise home, the ship sinks (torpedo? mine?) and she's injured as she's evacuating the ship.
As she recuperates at home, Bess travels to the dead soldier's home and encounters death, not to mention two step-brothers who seem unfeeling about their brother's death and a strange stepmother.
Bess has to solve several murders, endure the contempt of the local constabulary, challenge the social mores of the era, and face her own demons as she realizes England is not the calm she envisioned when she was in France.
A Duty to the Dead doesn't have the deep, dark psychological pinnings of the Ian Rutledge series but it's written with the same tight plotting, believable characters, and historical research that will make Charles Tood fans happy.
This book was read over a weekend. I couldn't put it down and I look forward to other Bess Crawford books. Charles Todd books are intriguing and educational, as well as fun to read. A Duty to the Dead is a wonderful addition for Charles Todd fans and anyone interested in WWI.
This story introduces Bess Crawford, a WWI nurse and investigator.
Bess is serving on the red cross ship Britannic when it hits a mine and sinks. Thirty men die and Bess suffers a broken arm in the explosion.
Bess is given medical leave because of her arm and returns to London.
She had cared for a wounded man, Amborse Graham was had been getting better but his wound turned septic and he died. He asked Bess to deliver a message to his brother. "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right."
Bess travesl to Kent and meets the Graham family. Jonathan is also home from the war, revovering from a wound to his head. His mother is there and brother, Tim, who has a club foot and is declared medically unfit for military service. Also there is cousin, Robert Douglas. Bess learns that there is still another brother, Peregrine who is institutionalized.
A local doctor learns that Bess is visiting and asks her help with one of his cases. Another veteran is home from the war and suffering from what he has gone through. Ted Booker has shell shock from seeing his twin brother die in front of him. In one of the more compasionate, touching scenes, Bess talks to Ted as if she's from his unit, she gets him to calm down and it seems to help.
The family learns that Peregrine has pnemonia and cannot be treated at the institute. They want to send him home. Mrs. Graham refuses to have him in the house but Robert persuades her to let him come. Bess offers to care for him and Mrs. Graham warns Bess that the reason for her son's confinement is that he murdered a servant when he was fourteen and didn't know hiw mind.
Peregrine recovers but Bess is saddened to learn that Ted Booker committed suicide. Since he seemed to be recovering, both Bess and the doctor think something might be amiss.
Back in London, Bess is surprised with a visitor. Peregrine is at her flat. The family was going to send him back to the institute but he escaped. He wants Bess' help to try to find out what went on when it was said that he killed the girl. Reluctantly, Bess agrees and they proceed to relive the events that surrounded the murder of Lily Mercer.
This is a well written cozy novel. The pace is appropriate and the authors get the reader involved with the story. Bess is a heroic and promising character, Peregrine is a sympathetic character and the plot is original and believable. It is a lesson to see how facts can be shaded to give a completely different menaing and that could change a person's life.
Recommended.
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Overview
England, 1916. Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. Growing up in India, she learned the importance of responsibility, honor, and duty from her officer father. At the outbreak of World War I, she followed in his footsteps and volunteered for the nursing corps, serving from the...