As the Great War drags on with all its misery in the
autumn of 1918, Nursing Sister Bess Crawford is glad to
have made a safe passage across to Dover from France. She
is exhausted but glad they had not lost any of the
severely injured soldiers on the way over. With a few
days off, Bess is now anxious to get to London from
Canterbury to visit her family, but all the trains are
full, largely with military transfers and wounded
soldiers. To fill her waiting time for the next train,
Bess decides to visit the Cathedral when she is spotted
by a former patient, Major Mark Aston.
Aston is very happy to see Bess and knowing his mother
would appreciate a visit with her as they had previously
met in France when he was wounded. He quickly invites her
to their family home in the nearby village of Cranbourne
on the Swale. On the way, Aston tells Bess about the
horrific explosion and fire over two years earlier that
caused over 100 deaths in the family gunpowder factory.
After sabotage was ruled out by the army, it was deemed a
tragic accident that marred a safety record of over a century. Yet despite that,
the mood in the village had
changed recently, and ugly and increasingly vicious
incidents are happening. Philip Aston, Mark's father,
is taken into custody by the unsympathetic local police.
Why has this happened? Why do the villagers think he is
guilty? Where are his friends and those who know him? Is
he innocent or not?
A PATTERN OF LIES is the seventh book in the Bess
Crawford Mystery Series written by Charles Todd, a best-selling team of
Charles Todd and his mother Caroline
Todd. It is an awesome series about a very competent and
brave woman who is willing to do what she can to help the
soldiers under her care and to put her intelligent mind
to helping her friends grapple with problems or to help
solve a mystery. The Todd team have nicely crafted this
latest mystery that is based on a real event concerning
the 1916 Oare Gunpowder explosion in Kent. The Todd team
are well known for their ability to bring the WWI times
into life in their books and A PATTERN OF LIES is no
exception. It realistically describes wartime conditions
and shortages in England as well as life on the front in
France for the soldiers, the wounded, the nursing sisters,
and medical teams.
The story development in A PATTERN OF LIES is strong and
really highlights how easily sown lies can influence
people, and the power that a mob mentality can have as it
takes a hold over the truth. This latest addition
by Todd is definitely darker than earlier books but still
a very good read. I have to admit my favourite scenes
are where Bess calls on her authority (real or
otherwise) as a Nursing Sister with the Queen Alexander
Imperial Nursing Services to get access to places or family members to obtain
much needed and often hidden information to help puzzle things out.
Todd's many fans will certainly appreciate this
continuation of life and events with Bess. While A
PATTERN OF LIES can easily be read as a standalone
mystery, having read a few other books in the series will
certainly add to the richness of the story as characters
from the previous books reappear, but with brief
background descriptions.
In A PATTERN OF LIES there is a stronger focus on
setting the mystery and its impact than on Bess as a
character and a heroine. Given that, I hope as the
war finally ends, future books might have a stronger
focus on Bess's development as a character as I really
like her spunk and wit. Meanwhile, if you love good
historical fiction or British-based mysteries, you will
find much of interest in A PATTERN OF LIES. Do check it
out for yourself.
A horrific explosion at a gunpowder mill sends Bess Crawford
to war-torn France to keep a deadly pattern of lies from
leading to more deaths, in this compelling and atmospheric
mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of A
Question of Honor and An Unwilling Accomplice.
An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent
has killed over a hundred men. It’s called an appalling
tragedy—until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of
murder. While visiting the Ashton family, Bess Crawford
finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility that
doesn’t stop with Philip Ashton’s arrest. Indeed, someone is
out for blood, and the household is all but under siege.
The only known witness to the tragedy is now at the Front in
France. Bess is asked to find him. When she does, he refuses
to tell her anything that will help the Ashtons. Realizing
that he believes the tissue of lies that has nearly
destroyed a family, Bess must convince him to tell her what
really happened that terrible Sunday morning. But now
someone else is also searching for this man.
To end the vicious persecution of the Ashtons, Bess must
risk her own life to protect her reluctant witness from a
clever killer intent on preventing either of them from ever
reaching England.
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