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5.0 out of 5 stars
COMPELLING, ATMOSPHERIC, SUSPENSEFUL, Nov 20 2009
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
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by Charles Todd
by Deborah Crombie
by Michael Connelly
by Rennie Airth
by Peter Lovesey
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