An Unmarked Grave

A Bess Crawford Mystery, Book 4

De: Charles Todd

Narrado por: Rosalyn Landor

Duración: 8 h y 31 m

Resumen del Editor

World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford matches wits with a devious killer in this exciting and suspenseful adventure from New York Times best-selling author Charles Todd.

In the spring of 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic spreads, killing millions of soldiers and civilians across the globe. Overwhelmed by the constant flow of wounded soldiers coming from the French front, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford must now contend with hundreds of influenza patients as well.

However, war and disease are not the only killers to strike. Bess discovers, concealed among the dead waiting for burial, the body of an officer who has been murdered. Though she is devoted to all her patients, this soldier's death touches her deeply. Not only did the man serve in her father's former regiment, he was also a family friend.

Before she can report the terrible news, Bess falls ill, the latest victim of the flu. By the time she recovers, the murdered officer has been buried, and the only other person who saw the body has hanged himself. Or did he?

Working her father's connections in the military, Bess begins to piece together what little evidence she can find to unmask the elusive killer and see justice served. But she must be as vigilant as she is tenacious. With a determined killer on her heels, each move Bess makes could be her last.

©2012 Charles Todd (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

I’m marked grave

Enjoyed this as much as the others I have listened. Always a twist and can’t always see it!!

Loved it

As always I’ve listened to this series numerous times. And each time I love every minute of it.
I can’t wait until the next book in the series.

A good one

Just listen to the preceding books in the series for character development and continuity.
This story was a bit complicated and I enjoyed following the plot.

Excellent plot

I enjoyed this installment of the Bess Crawford series more than the previous ones. The story of a serial killer preying on WWI soldiers and nurses, in both France and England, kept me involved as Bess uncovered pieces of the puzzle while trying to keep from becoming another victim. Most interesting was the issue of the killer's motive -- is he randomly attacking people, or is he a spy, or is he out for revenge, and if so, for what perceived injury.

An Unmarked Grave

Another amazing story set in the middle of war. The author has created a realistic picture of the horror and endurance of the people and characters.

Bess is so strong and compassionate but also has a sense of honor. Amazing narration

A Nurse Bess Crawford mystery

This mystery is set against the background of WW I 1918. The war has dragged on for several years, losses have been huge for both sides, men are being gassed, and then the pandemic of the 1918 flu is killing people globally. Bess and the other nurses are hard pressed to handle the wounded and now the sick. Soldiers are dying so quickly in France that they are being buried in pits. But one day Bess is called into the room where the bodies are held because an orderly has found a body that did not belong to that unit, with no identifying clothes, and who hadn’t died of the flu. In fact, his neck was broken and he was murdered. Bess knew the man, a family friend who served with her father. She arranged for the orderly to hold back the trucks which took the bodies away, and Bess went off to find the matron to decide what to do. But Bess fell ill with the flu, and was delirious for several days. The nightmare of seeing the murdered man came back to her in a dream. When she finally recovered, she didn’t know if it was a dream or had happened. But then, she learned that the orderly who had also seen the body had, seemingly committed suicide. She instantly believed he was murdered. Bess enlisted the aid of Simon and her father and others to track down this murderer, and her own life was almost taken several times. This was an exciting book, each one in the series has gotten better and better. Landor is a particularly good narrator, especially for no-nonsense nurse Bess Crawford.

Entertaining performance, Addictive story lines.

Though both are written well, I've enjoyed Todd's Bess Crawford mystery series more than the Inspector Ian Rutledge series. Both take place during or just after WWI, which is an absolutely fascinating time period. It's obvious that Todd has done quite a bit of historical research on the war, which certainly adds to each stories' atmosphere.

The plots might sometimes be a bit of a stretch, but they have enough truth and "believability" so that I've always really enjoyed them.

The characters are the best part. They are so well developed, they're the reason I've gone through the whole Crawford series. After I'd used my Audible credit on the first book and finished it, I instantly purchased the second book so that I wouldn't have to wait a whole month to see how each character's subplots progressed.

The narrator's voice sounds a bit too cold for me at times, but again, each character's personality is very strongly written so that towards the end I wasn't bothered by it.

I thoroughly recommend this book. If you want your characters a bit darker, I suggest the Rutledge series as well.

Great Read

Love this and the Ian Rutledge series. So well written you feel like you are there and the twists are genius.

ANOTHER GREAT CHARLES TODD SERIES! #4

I got hooked on author Charles Todd through is Inspector Ian Rutledge series. The Bess Crawford Mysteries are ALMOST as good, with the usual early murder in an unlikely location, followed by an amazing number of twists, turns, and red herrings which keep the reader off kilter until the very end. This is the 4th in the series. I say this so you don't start out of order. Each book can stand on its own but subsequent ones make reference to prior crimes.

Bess is the only daughter of a highly decorated British colonel who has chosen nursing on the battlefields during World War I, rather than a comfortable, if loveless, marriage to a gentleman of her class. While she lacks the training and knowledge of Rutledge (a well-educated member of London gentry who chose law enforcement before fighting as an officer in the same war), Bess' criminal deductive skills come from what I took as "female intuition", a bit of a condensending insult to women then and now. This choice by Todd gives the Bess Crawford series less of an overall impact, especially since it takes place before the acceptance of such rudimentary criminal forensics like fingerprints, ballistics, the information provided by rigor mortis and livor mortis - all which would become critical components just a decade later. Bess kinda "stumbles" her way into solutions with the full force of the considerable resources and access to military and government documents and databases provided by her father.

The narrator is out of league here. While Landor is great with Regency, Edwardian, and Victorian romance books, her range of voices and dialects is limited, especially with respect to males. All of her men sound like upper-crust fops talking like their buttocks are clinched so tight that a hungry man couldn't get a shilling from between the cheeks. A major flaw is with the dialogue between women of the same class. If more than 2 are talking, the normally irritating "Bess said" or "Lady Stiff-Upperlip remarked" is sorely needed just to keep your place or you'll find yourself rewinding repeatedly throughout the book.

That said, this series is still worth listening to. Try to get them on sale if you can and start with Bess Crawford before the Rutledge books. Comparatively, she is merely a tasty appetizer to Rutledge's outstanding main course. (NOTE: I will post this same review for the others in the series, only changing the chronological order since this is the only one where Audible.com has seen fit to add "Book 4).

Wonderful series.

This was the third book I’ve listened to and they have all been wonderfully written and well read. I can’t wait to listen to the next one.