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A Duty to the Dead (Bess Crawford Mysteries Book 1)
Like Maisie Dobbs, this series features an atmospheric, post-WWI England setting and a wartime nurse turned investigator; with the Bess Crawford series, the authors explicitly wanted to show readers the women's side of The Great War. In this first installment, Bess is determined to fulfill a promise she made to a dying officer, even though she's been sent away from the front with a broken arm. But when she meets the man's family, something feels off—and she soon realizes she's plunged straight into the middle of a web of long-buried secrets. Written by the mother-son writing duo of Caroline and Charles Todd.
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
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.
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