Brought up in India, where she was taught values of duty, honor and integrity by her officer father, Bess Crawford has signed up for service as a British nurse, in France. She tends diligently to the many wounded of the first world war. Her interest, however, is always piqued by a mystery, and she feels compelled to find all the answers, leading to this character’s secondary vocation as an amateur sleuth. Doing the right thing is important to Bess Crawford, and she always strives to follow the moral code bequeathed to her by her upstanding soldier Father a colonel Major in the British Army. This sense of duty and morality has drawn her into some tricky and even dangerous situations.
This series of novels (in consecutive order of publication) follows Bess Crawford, the indomitable heroine created by author Charles Todd through her role as a battlefield nurse during the first Great War, WW I, and the deadly circumstances come whenever she investigates the true nature to a murder.
Titles for the entire Bess Crawford series runs in consecutive order of publication.
Bess Crawford Short Story Collection
A Hanging at Dawn
This Novella once again introduces readers to a young Bess Crawford during her time of living with her parents in India. This time around it is also told through the eyes of Melinda, Richard and Clarissa. A Hanging at Dawn pieces together a mystery at the center of Bess’s family that will irrevocably change the course of her future.
Years before the Great War summoned Bess Crawford to serve as a battlefield nurse, the indomitable heroine spent her childhood in India under the watchful eye of her friend and confidant, the young soldier Simon Brandon. The two formed an inseparable bond on the dangerous Northwest Frontier where her father’s Regiment held the Khyber Pass against all intruders. It was Simon who taught Bess to ride and shoot, escorted her to the bazaars and the Maharani’s Palace, and did his best to keep her out of trouble, after the Crawford family took an interest in the tall, angry boy with a mysterious past. But the Crawfords have long guarded secrets for Simon and he owes them a debt that runs deeper than Bess could ever know.
REVIEWS for A Hanging at Dawn
“Winning….Fans of independent women sleuths like Maisie Dobbs will welcome this new addition to their ranks.” – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Anyone who cares to loll in early-20th century English villages and mores and follow a plucky heroine as she confronts the stupidity of war will find solace in this old-fashioned mystery.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Todd employs all the elements of a satisfying cozy mystery, with an absorbing plot and a charismatic heroine that will leave the reader wanting more.” – LIBRARY JOURNAL
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The Maharani’s Pearls
This short story serves as a prequel in introducing a young Bess Crawford when she lived with her parents in India. This short also serves as one the benchmarks that would influence the Bess Crawford we now know during and after her extraordinary service in the Great War.
As a result of her father, Major Crawford (a colonel in the British Army) taking a posting in the country’s Northwest Frontier, a young Bess Crawford’s curiosity about this exotic country sometimes leads her into trouble.
One of those days began when she slipped away from the cantonment to visit the famous seer in a nearby village. Before this woman can finish telling her fortune, Bess is summoned back for an afternoon tea with the Maharani, a close friend of her parents’. The seer’s last words are a warning about forthcoming danger that Bess takes as the usual patter. But this visit by the Maharani has ominous overtones that mark it as more than a social call. Her husband has political enemies, and she has come to ask Bess’s father, Major Crawford, for help.
As the Maharani is leaving, Bess notices that there is something amiss with the royal entourage. Major Crawford must set out after them—but will he be in time? And what will happen to Bess, and the household left behind, when a vicious assassin circles back to take hostages?
The Maharani’s Pearls is also available in the Charles Todd anthology Tales, published 2015.
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The Girl on the Beach
The Girl on the Beach is a Bess Crawford short story that fits in between the two novels A Duty to the Dead and An Impartial Witness.
It’s 1916 Sussex, England, Bess Crawford finds a dead body on a beach prompting her and the local police to try to find out who the dead girl is as well as who it was that took her life.
The Girl on the Beach is available in the Charles Todd anthology Tales, published 2015.