{"id":4805,"date":"2015-09-03T05:49:10","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T09:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4805"},"modified":"2015-09-03T05:50:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T09:50:24","slug":"a-pattern-of-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4805","title":{"rendered":"***A Pattern of Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Canterbury,

Canterbury (photo: Vicki Weisfeld)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Charles Todd<\/a> \u2013 In Book 7 in the Bess Crawford mystery series, Bess works as a World War I field hospital nurse in France (1918), where the terrible surroundings are well imagined and effectively described. On leave and waiting for a train in Canterbury, Bess encounters a past patient, Major Mark Ashton, who invites her to stay the night with his family, as a train to London is not likely before morning. Mark\u2019s mother had come to France to help care for him, and Bess is happy to renew her acquaintance.<\/p>\n

Mark tells her about the loss of the family business\u2014a gunpowder mill\u2014which blew up two years previously. A fire ensued, and more than a hundred workers lost their lives. At first, sabotage was suspected, but eventually the explosion\u2014which created a shortfall in vital British armament production\u2014was ruled an accident. Rather than rebuild on the site, the government relocated production to Scotland. The village economy was devastated by the loss of both men and their jobs. Resentments run high.<\/p>\n

Recently, a spate of vicious rumors has circulated, accusing Mark\u2019s father of causing the catastrophe. Allegedly, he was at odds with the government over the running of the mill and its possible disposition after the war. The father dismisses these rumors as something no thinking person would take seriously. Unfortunately, evidence of the increasingly uneasy relationship between residents of the Ashton manor and the fictional village of Cranbourne is not hard to come by, with minor, but escalating acts of vandalism and anonymous threatening letters.<\/p>\n

Where these problems started\u2014and, more ominously, where they will end up\u2014is increasingly uncertain. Mark hopes that Bess\u2019s arrival will help his parents take their minds off their current troubles, which local police seem loathe to investigate. But during her visit, the unthinkable happens: Mark\u2019s father, Philip Ashton, is arrested on a charge of murder. In the ensuing weeks, the only people he\u2019s allowed to see are his legal representatives. However, with their client facing possible conviction and death, they seem oddly unmotivated.<\/p>\n

Bess spends much of her time on duty in France, but several short trips to England, accompanying patients who need more care than can be offered in the field, allow her to stay in touch with the Ashton family. She uses her contacts in the battlefield grapevine to find out about a witness to the tragedy, relying on an Australian sergeant\u2014who has a quite obvious crush on our Bess\u2014as her eyes and ears. She also has resources closer to home: her father, the \u201cColonel Sahib,\u201d who had retired from the military but was called back for \u201cspecial duty,\u201d and his former Regimental Sergeant-Major. Both of them are apparently connected with military intelligence, and willing to look into matters for Bess and provide what information they can. Bess becomes more than an interested bystander when her investigations incite an attempt on her own life.<\/p>\n

The thoroughness with which an amateur sleuth and an outsider can inject herself into the events of a plot is always a bit tricky to handle plausibly. Todd stretches logic thin in a few instances, but Bess\u2019s interventions mostly work well. While the book has many strengths, in the end, the motivation behind all the trouble seemed to me rather weak.<\/p>\n

A Pattern of Lies<\/em> will especially appeal to fans of the recent television mini-series about British nurses in France in World War I, The Crimson Field<\/em>. Charles Todd is a mother and son writing team based in Delaware and North Carolina. One wonders how such a team works, though, in their case, with numerous books behind them, the results are seamless and speak for themselves.
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