An Impartial Witness

This is the second in Todd's Bess Crawford series following "A Duty to the Dead." The book opens in 1917 with Bess accompanying a shipload of wounded soldiers back to England from the tenches in France. After turning her charges over to others, Bess sees a woman she knows, but only from the photograph pinned to one of her severely wounded patients. The woman is her patient's wife. Bess is shocked to see the woman in tears talking to a man who was obviously her lover. When the woman is later murdered, Bess reports what she has seen to the Scotland Yard detective in charge of the case. When the husband commits suicide, Bess feels she must investigate the woman's murder instead of letting Scotland Yard conduct the investigation. Todd has a rich cast of characters each met in his/her turn as Bess begins peeling back the layers of the dead woman's life to find out why she was murdered. The obvious suspects are eliminated one by one. In the end, Bess' life is in danger from the murderer. This is not a fast-paced mystery. The reader is with Bess as she uncovers each piece of evidence and as she tries to puzzle out who killed the young woman and why. With each new piece of evidence, she gets closer to answering her own questions. Unbeknownst to either Bess or the reader, each piece of the puzzle as it slips into place, draws her ever closer to real danger. When the killer attempts to kill another young woman, a cousin of the first victim, Scotland Yard arrests a wounded soldier whom Bess has spent time with. Bess is convinced that he is innocent which, of course, only spurs her on. Bess is not omniscient, she believes the people she likes who often withhold key pieces of evidence. As the case evolves, Bess narrows the suspects to two. Todd has you, like Bess, wanting one character to be the killer and in a twist, finding out it was another character who was the real killer. Todd draws you into the book slowly but surely. Toward the end, when Bess is desperate to save the young man accused of the murder, you'll find yourself feeling the same urgency and will be unable to put the book down - regardless of the hour. With each entry in this series, Bess becomes more fully fleshed out as a young woman dedicated to her patients on the front lines in France, a loving daughter, a caring friend, and someone you'd like to spend more time with.

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.

I usually don't read or particulary like historical novels. Yet, I have loved every novel by the mother & son writing team - Charles Todd. I discovered them with their first "Rutledge" novel A TEST OF WILLS and have read and loved all their subsequent work. Many of their novels are 5 STAR works. I liked their first Bess Crawford novel and enjoyed this one also. The only weak link to be dealt with is just how much leave can Bess really get. The atmosphere, plotting and characteriztion is on an extremely high level and I expect even greater work in the future with this new series. The detailed accuracy of the era is dead on. My only critism of their latest work is: Bess seems to get a lot of convienent leave and Rutledge seems to do an inordinate amount of driving in the latest novels.

This book takes place during World War I and begins not quite in the trenches but at the aid station/hospital nearby. Amidst the muck, mud, blood and filth wounded soldiers are being tended to by devoted nurses who in age where high society women were generally gently cared for, some left it all behind to help nurse the soldiers. Bess Crawford was one of these women. As the story begins, she escorts some of the wounded soldiers back to England and by a fluke sees one of her wounded soldiers' wife crying in the arms of another soldier at the train depot. Through a series of circumstances she finds that the woman was murdered later that day and her patient, subsequently commits suicide feeling he has nothing left to live for. She writes to the detective in charge of the investigation to let him know that she had seen the women and then over the course of each leave she gets, she becomes more and more involved finding out who killed the woman. Solving a mystery during the time of war and almost 100 years before cell phones, faxes, etc. is difficult enough, but breaching the social class distinctions and where honor is everything became far more of a problem. But eventually Bess solves the mystery of who the killer was in time to save her friend from death. Not only was the book interesting, it also gave insight into the war and some of the difficulty the English people and solders faced during that awful time. I enjoy reading this book as it not only tells a story, but it also teaches you. I would certainly be happy to read more books in this series.