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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great historical mystery. I couldn't put it down., August 14, 2010
This review is from: An Impartial Witness: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Hardcover)
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Sometimes, if you interrupt me while I'm reading a book to ask how I like it, I'll respond, "Oh, it's good," in a quiet sort of 4-star way. But then I'll tell you to shut up because I'm busy reading. And then I stay up late, way past my bed-time, to finish the book. I realize only after I'm done that this is a 5-star book. That pretty well describes my response to An Impartial Witness. It's really, really good, but not in a manner to make me shout aloud.
The back cover suggests that this book will appeal to those who like Jacqueline Winspear's novels -- and I can see why. In both cases, the protagonist is a World War I nurse who gets involved in solving a mystery. Winspear's heroine is (or rather becomes) a professional detective, though. This Bess Crawford novel would be considered a "cozy mystery" but for the historical setting.
Bess has nursed an aircraft pilot for quite a while after he was severely burned in France; the man held onto a photo of his wife to give him hope. Right after delivering the pilot to longer-term care back in England, Bess sees the wife crying all over a serviceman at the train station. The woman is distraught enough that Bess runs after her, to no avail. But soon thereafter, she learns that the pilot's wife was murdered that night. Thus she becomes involved in finding out who did it...
The mystery is a good one (though I confess I solved some of the plot points before Bess did) and obviously, given my sleepiness this morning, held my interest all the way through. But what makes this book so enjoyable is the writing style (which is gentle, even when describing a war scene), entirely plausible characters (even the obnoxious ones), and the historical detail that brings the era to life. From an upper-class woman fretting about finding chickens to serve dinner guests to the despair and loneliness of relatives worried about the fate of their soldiers, I got a clear picture of day-to-day life in 1917.
I really enjoyed this book. I think you will, too.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Gave it 3 stars, but that is generous, September 27, 2010
This review is from: An Impartial Witness: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Hardcover)
I gave the first book in this series, "A Duty to the Dead" a 5-star review. I loved that book and thought it was one of the best mysteries I had read in a long time. It was the perfect balance of atmosphere, mystery and character. I was eager to read this one when it was published and grabbed it quickly. To be blunt, I was fairly disappointed.
The novel's main character is Bess Crawford, a British nurse serving in France during World War I. Bess finds herself caring for a badly burned pilot and ends up attending to him during the transport back to England. His injuries are severe but he hangs on to the will to live due to his intense love for his wife - the desire to be with her again keeps him alive. Upon arrival back in England, Bess is convinced she sees his wife with another man at the train station and the book is off and running from there.
While I enjoyed the previous book immensely, this one didn't work for me. 1) There were WAY too many coincidences to be anywhere near believable. 2) The main character of Bess became irritating to me after a while (she regularly reminds the reader how brilliant she is because she trained as a nurse, she often takes offense to the way people treat her since she has all this intellectual power, and her over-developed since of responsibility was grating). The mystery itself drug along to the point I no longer cared about the person(s) who died and who killed them. I pretty much just wanted it to be over but kept reading since I knew the first one had been so good that I thought it would pick up.
I am sad to report that a wonderful debut was followed up with a book that was less that satisfying. The sense of place, strong female role and interesting mystery of the first novel were replaced by something that left me disappointed at best. My high hopes were dashed with this one.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"In our quest for knowledge...we place our trust into an...impartial intellect...which brings us nearer to destruction.", May 31, 2011
This review is from: An Impartial Witness: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Hardcover)
As the reader has followed the adventures of Bess Crawford, a nurse on active duty during WWI, we see what a caring person she is. We also observe her curiosity and in this story, we witness her duty to the dead.
The action of this story begins with Bess helping escort a group of injured soldiers back to England from the French battlefields.
One of the members of the group is a badly burned pilot who keeps a photo of his wife on his chest as if it represents his hope and reason for living.
After delivering the patients to the English clinic, Bess is given leave. She notices a woman at a train station giving a tearful goodbye to a soldier heading for the front. When the woman turns toward Bess, Bess regognizes the woman from the photo. It's the wife of the injured pilot. Bess consider's the husband suffering in pain at the clinic while his wife spends time with another soldier. Bess considers how unfair this is.
When Bess returns from her leave and has a chance to read a local newspaper, she's shocked to learn that the woman has been murdered. Not only that but that the woman was three months pregnant while her husband had been at the front for four months. The sadness continues when Bess reads that the injured pilot managed to find a scapel and committed suicide after learning the news.
Bess feels that she was placed in this situation and wants to learn more. On her next leave back to England, she visits the woman, Marjorie Everson's, family and learns of the antagonism that Marjorie's sister, Victoria, had for her. She also meets Lt. Everson's sister, Serena Melton, and finds that she is claiming that her sister-in-law's death was just a robbery gone bad.
Bess's woman's intuition makes her believe that the answer in with the soldier that Marjorie was with at the train station. She contacts the authorites and begins to search for that soldier.
There are more twists and deaths in the story as Bess attempts to find the answers. This is described around the events of the war as Bess returns again to the front, to care for newly wounded soldiers and observe how insane the war is where there is a high cost of lives for only a few hundred yards gained and then lost in battle. The story was so realistic it was almost as if the reader could feel the amunition exploding, smell the gunsmoke and hear the moans of the injured.
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