Nurse Bess Crawford’s Timeline
This timeline is largely based on the chronological order of publication for each title in the Bess Crawford Mystery Series. It begins with the first book, A Duty to the Dead, which introduces the world to the indomitable heroine Bess Crawford. As a battlefield nurse in service of the British Empire during the first Great War (WWI), the stories bounce back and forth between France and Bess’s home in England. While she tends diligently to the many wounded, her secondary vocation as an amateur sleuth often draws her into tricky and even downright dangerous situations.
Book # 1, A Duty to the Dead (published 2009). The story begins in November 1916 with Bess onboard the soon to be doomed hospital ship Britannic during the Great War. Later, when she is back home in England, she receives a desperate request from a dying lieutenant she had cared for while onboard, and this drives her quickly into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder.
In addition to the 11 novels in the series there are two novellas and one short story.
The Maharani’s Pearls (published 2014). This short story serves as an extraordinary glimpse into the childhood when she lived with her parents in India’s Northwest Frontier. The Maharani’s Pearls can also be found in the anthology Tales.
A Hanging at Dawn (published Nov. 2020) is a novella that presents a backstory for Bess’s friend and confidant, Simon Brandon, who as a young soldier served under the Regiment in India led by Bess’s father. Told through the eyes of Melinda, Richard, Clarissa and Bess, the story pieces together a mystery at the center of the Crawford family.
The Girl on the Beach (published 2010) is a Bess Crawford short story. Intrepid battlefield nurse Bess Crawford finds a dead body on a beach and works with the local police to determine her identity and find out who took her life. The Girl on the Beach can also be found in the anthology Tales.
Book # 2, An Impartial Witness (published 2010). It is now early summer of 1917 and Bess Crawford finds herself in grave peril when a moral obligation makes her the inadvertent target of a killer.
Book # 3, A Bitter Truth (published 2011) Bess Crawford returns from France in December 1917 for a well-earned Christmas leave only to find she is not just in the presence of a murder, but she is falsely accused of committing it.
Book # 4, An Unmarked Grave (published 2012) starts during a deadly time in Spring 1918 when the Spanish flu pandemic spreads, killing millions of soldiers and civilians across the globe. Overwhelmed by the constant flow of wounded soldiers coming from the French front, along hundreds more infected by the virus she must contend with a determined murderer on her heels.
Book # 5, A Question of Honor (published 2013) moves to Summer 1918 with World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford investigating a murder that occurred during her childhood in India by someone who is now serving among the British ranks.
Book # 6, An Unwilling Accomplice (published 2014). Home on leave, Bess Crawford is asked to accompany a wounded soldier confined to a wheelchair to Buckingham Palace, where he is to be decorated by the King. Crawford’s career is in jeopardy when a murder is committed when the solider goes missing and is later accused of killing a man. Bess must save her reputation and uncover the truth.
Book # 7, A Pattern of Lies (published 2015) starts off with a bang when an explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men. The Autumn 1918 incident is called an appalling tragedy—until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. Bess finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility.
Book # 8, The Shattered Tree (published 2016) It’s October 1918 and Bess delves into a mystery when a wounded officer is retrieved from the French side of the front but may be working for the other side. When the officer disappears, Bess risks her life to find why.
Book # 9, A Casualty of War (published 2017). Waiting for transport back to her post nurse Bess meets Captain Alan Travis from the island of Barbados. Later, when he’s brought into her aid station disoriented from a head wound, Bess is alarmed that he believes his distant English cousin, Lieutenant James Travis, shot him. On leave in England, Bess travels to James Travis’s home to learn more, which leads her into unexpected danger.
Book # 10, A Forgotten Place (published 2018). It is November 1918 after the Great War has ended and Bess has been assigned to a clinic for amputees. She finds herself caught in deadly circumstances when she travels to a coal mining village in remote Welsh headland to further help some of the amputees adjust to life after war.
Book # 11, A Cruel Deception (published 2019). It is November 1918 after the Great War has ended but a Peace Treaty has yet to be signed by all parties involved. Bess has been working with the severely wounded in England and takes on a personal mission in Paris. It is there she must unlock a mystery and save a troubled officer from a mysterious killer.
Book #12, An Irish Hostage (published 2021). The Great War has finally ended, but in Ireland, no one has forgotten the bloody 1916 Easter Rising, an attempt to end British rule in the country. Bess arrives in Galway for a friend’s wedding, only to find the groom is missing, a man has been murdered, and she’s told to put her trust in Eileen’s cousin, still hunted by the English. But is he also involved in what’s happening? She must tread carefully, to survive.
Book #13, The Cliff’s Edge (published 2023). Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford agrees to travel to Yorkshire to help a friend of her cousin Melinda through surgery. But circumstances change suddenly when news of a terrible accident reaches them. Bess agrees to go to isolated Scarfdale and the Neville family, where one man has been killed and another gravely injured. The police are asking questions, and Bess is quickly drawn into the fray as two once close families take sides, even as they are forced to remain in the same house until the inquest is completed.