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77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic!, July 30, 2009
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I loved this book. The setting is interesting, the characters have depth, and the mystery is complex enough to make a reader think, without being convoluted or confusing. Best of all, the writing is exceptional. I was hooked after only a few pages.
I'm sure comparisons will be made between Bess Crawford and Maisie Dobbs since both worked as nurses during WW1 and are independent, intelligent, and compassionate women sleuths. However, Bess is not an imitation of Maisie. Their backgrounds, personalities, and investigative styles are quite different.
I hesitate to give much of a plot summary, because I don't want to spoil anything for other readers. I was lucky enough to pick up this book without any information beyond the very basic back cover blurb, and I really enjoyed reading without any previous knowledge of where the story was going. (Even the Publishers Weekly review gives away just a bit too much, in my opinion.) So, to give only the most basic outline - the story opens on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, where Bess works as a nurse. We learn that she was entrusted with a message to deliver to a (dead) soldier's family. The message and its reception leave Bess with an unsettled feeling and the mystery begins to unfold, complicated by the very unusual family dynamics of her hosts in Kent.
"A Duty to the Dead" is a definite original and a great read. The only possible downside that I can imagine is that you will have trouble putting it down until you have reached the end.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing Mystery Story Set During WWI, July 23, 2009
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Bess Crawford, daughter of a British Army officer and a nurse serving aboard the hospital ship Britannic, is invalided home after the ship is torpedoed and her arm is broken. This gives her the chance to fulfill a soldier's dying wish; Arthur Graham's cryptic deathbed message is to be delivered directly--no letters will do--to his brother Jonathan: "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right." Bess' letter to the family results in an invitation to the Graham home, but to her surprise, there is no reaction when she delivers the message. Jonathan and Mrs. Graham even question if Arthur was in pain or drugged when he said it. But the longer Bess remains in the Graham home, the more questions begin to arise: what did the message mean and why was it so important to Arthur but not to his family? How did Arthur's oldest brother Peregrine become confined to an insane asylum when he was only fourteen? And when Bess is called on to nurse Peregrine through a bout of pneumonia, why isn't he the dimwitted man he has been described to be?
I really enjoyed reading this book and finished it in one long session. I have recently read similar books taking place during or concerning nursing sisters of WWI (Anne Perry's WWI mysteries, the Maisie Dobbs stories, GIFTS OF WAR) and I liked this the most except for the Maisie Dobbs novels. Bess is one of the strong women that emerged at the time of the war, no longer willing to be treated as sweet flowers who were rewards to men. If I have one quibble with the book it is that I would have liked more descriptions of Bess and of some of the supporting characters, but perhaps the author did so on purpose so we could imagine Bess as we wanted her to be. Also, a certain amount of coincidence creeps into the story: how convenient that someone should be sick just as Bess was visiting, or the fact that the minister so willingly offers Bess the late vicar's journals to read. However, these small things did nothing to deter my enjoyment of the novel. I will be interested to read more about this character.
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29 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dutiful, but Dead, Writing, August 7, 2009
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"A Duty to the Dead," by New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd, presumably begins a new historical mystery series, starring Bess Crawford. So this will join Todd's popular, highly-thought of Inspector Ian Rutledge series, now at eleven books. (There is also one stand-alone.) Charles Todd sets "his" mysteries in Britain; "he" is, however, actually an American mother-son writing team. She lives in Delaware; he, in North Carolina.
It's 1916; independently minded Bess has been a nurse aboard the floating World War I hospital ship Britannic, sister ship to the famed Titanic of the watery North Atlantic end. She has agreed to verbally transmit a message from the dying, charming, Lieutenant Arthur Graham, for whom she feels more than she should, back to his upper-crust family back home in the U.K. The book is told in first person, from Bess's point of view, an interesting departure from the Rutledge books.
Unfortunately, this time out, the team's writing, while it does cover the appropriate ground, is flat, and they are unable to make their material come alive. They choose to open with a set piece, much as the infinitely greater British mystery author John LeCarre generally does: the well-known sinking of Britannic in Greek waters. However, LeCarre's set pieces can blow the socks off a reader, see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; whereas the Todd team just can't make Britannic's sinking particularly vivid, and that's quite a failing. Perhaps actual World War I combat is a bit much for the Todd duo to handle. The book also, oddly enough, in several regards, strongly echoes a better historical mystery by Anne Perry, The Face of a Stranger: The First William Monk Novel (Mortalis).
The North Carolina-based son that's half of Charles Todd once spoke at a Wilmington Library Mystery Weekend. He was intelligent, charming, entertaining, and quite presentable: I wish him better luck next outing.
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