An Unwilling Accomplice

I've been meaning to read one of Charles Todd's mystery series about a World War I nurse, Bess Crawford, for awhile.  Winning a copy of his latest, An Unwilling Accomplice (#442) on Good Reads gave me the perfect opportunity.  It did not disappoint, and I'm happy to say, you don't have to have read the previous entries in this series to easily get right into the plot.

In this outing, Bess has been requested by the War Office to accompany a wounded soldier to Buckingham Palace to receive a medal from the King.  She's puzzled, because to her knowledge, she has never met this soldier before.  All goes well until the next morning when Sergeant Wilkins is due to return to his hospital in Shrewsbury.  He has vanished, leaving behind only a pile of discarded bandages and his wheelchair.  Bess and the orderly assigned to bring Wilkins back search for him until it becomes evident he does not want to be found.  Bess Crawford, unfortunately, is the one called on the carpet to answer to charges of negligence.  She is determined to clear her name and get to the bottom of Wilkin's disappearance, especially when Scotland Yard announces that he has murdered another soldier in a remote country village.  With the aid of Sergeant Major Simon Brandon, Bess puts her own life at risk to solve the mystery.

Charles Todd (actually a mother and son writing team!) does an excellent job recreating the atmosphere of rural England weary of the War, and the everyday deprivations it has brought in its wake.  The close knit society of the rural area where Bess and Simon stand out as strangers make their task doubly difficult.  As they gradually unravel the puzzle, it's more layered than they could possibly have imagined, which makes for a very satisfying yet plausible mystery.  I know that I'll be hunting down the previous books in this series to catch up on Bess and Simon's back stories, and I look forward to reading the Inspector Rutledge book (also by Charles Todd) which has been languishing on my shelf.  Good motivation to move it towards the top of my list!