The latest, or one of the latest, in the long series of Bess Crawford mysteries by the mother and son team known as Charles Todd, this one was another Christmas present. They apparently are all set during or just after WWI and star the fictitious British army nurse Bess Crawford. This one starts in December, 1918 in a field hospital in France, then moves to a field hospital for the returning soldiers in England and then to an isolated Welsh peninsula with a dark past and a population of poor hermits, misfits and unsolved crimes.
A la Sherlock Holmes, the narrator, Bess Crawford seems to have an uncanny ability to piece together far-from-obvious clues to solve the mystery of dead bodies washing ashore, strange beatings and the secrets known only to the residents who shun outsiders and any authorities. But Charles Todd is no Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The pathos, hardship, and despair of the wounded is well described, and there are abundant surprise twists. But the weak attempts to build suspense include too many unlikely chance clandestine meetings and beatings of mysterious characters on dark and stormy nights to be believable. The geography of the peninsula and the sites of the meetings and beatings are poorly described and confusing, at least to me. It is almost beyond belief that the narrator could even survive the machinations of the locals determined to keep their secrets to themselves, let alone solve their mysteries.
This is a fun light read, but it failed to make me a fan of the heroic Bess Crawford. I will not be reading the nine other novels featuring her nor the twenty three other mystery novels by the same author. But I am not a generally a fan of formulaic mystery novels to begin with, and this did nothing to change that. Others may well relish this genre.
Thanks Andra.
The Passionate Reader 