Bess Crawford is a nursing sister
serving at an aid station in France during WWI. At the height of the
influenza epidemic, she and her orderly find a corpse in the tent
housing the influenza victims awaiting burial who is instead a murder
victim. Beth is almost immediately stricken with influenza. When she
recovers, she wants to track down what happened to the murdered man.
She is particularly interested because he was a promising officer in
her father's regiment. As she tries to discover why he was murdered,
the bodies begin to pile up putting Beth at risk to be the killer's
next victim
I enjoyed the setting of this novel.
The battlefield conditions were well drawn. However, the characters
and plot did not live up to the promise of the opening scenes. I
found Bess rather dull. She seemed withdrawn from the action and
always looking to Colonel Sahib, her father, to extricate her from
difficulties. Likewise I found the plot very slow and not believable.
The rationale for all the killing seemed to me to be extremely thin.
I can't recommend this book very
highly. I do like the Ian Rutledge series by the same authors, but
this book doesn't live up to it's promise. The action moves slowly
and much of it, for me, is quite unbelievable in a battlefield
setting.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon
Vine Program: An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd.
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