Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Title: A Duty to the Dead (Bess Crawford Mysteries #1) Author: Charles Todd. Read by Rosalyn Landor Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America, 2009. Original publisher, William Morrow, 2009. 336 pages. Source: Library digital collection. Publisher's Summary: Charles Todd, author of the resoundingly acclaimed Ian Rutledge crime novels (“One of the best historical series being written today” — Washington Post Book World ) debuts an exceptional new protagonist, World War I nurse Bess Crawford, in A Duty to the Dead. A gripping tale of perilous obligations and dark family secrets in the shadows of a nightmarish time of global conflict, A Duty to the Dead is rich in suspense, surprise, and the impeccable period atmosphere that has become a Charles Todd trademark.   My Review: Note: I recently reviewed The Shattered Tree , the 8th book in the series. In that case, I was given an ARC in order to write my review. I enjoyed it enough to go back and start the series at the beginning, and found ...

Today we have another Great Escapes Blog tour, a mystery set among the violence and chaos of WWI. Title: The Shattered Tree Author: Charles Todd Publisher: William Morrow, 2016. 290 pages. Source: Publisher's ARC through Great Escapes Tours  Publisher's Summary:  At the foot of a tree shattered by shelling and gunfire, stretcher-bearers find an exhausted officer, shivering with cold and a loss of blood from several wounds. The soldier is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford’s aid station, where she stabilizes him and treats his injuries before he is sent to a rear hospital. The odd thing is, the officer isn’t British—he’s French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German. When Bess reports the incident to Matron, her superior offers a ready explanation. The soldier is from Alsace-Lorraine, a province in the west where the tenuous border between France and Germany has continually shifted through history, most recently in the Franco-Prussia...