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A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
Audiobook11 hours

A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery

Written by Charles Todd

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Though the Great War has ended, Bess Crawford finds herself caught in deadly circumstances on a remote Welsh headland in this tenth entry from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author.

The fighting has ended, the Armistice signed, but the war has left wounds that are still agonizingly raw. Battlefield Nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees, and the Welsh patients worry her. She does her best to help them, but it’s clear that they have nothing to go home to, in a valley where only the fit can work in the coal pits. When they are released, she fears that peace will do what war couldn’t—take their lives.

Their officer, Captain Williams, writes to describe their despair, and his own at trying to save his men. Bess feels compelled to look into their situation, but the Army and the clinic can do nothing. Requesting leave, she quietly travels to Wales, and that bleak coal mining village, but she is too late.

Captain Williams’ sister tells Bess he has left the valley. Bess is afraid he intends to kill himself. She follows him to an isolated, storm-battered peninsula—a harsh and forgotten place where secrets and death go hand in hand. Deserted by her frightened driver, Bess is stranded among strangers suspicious of outsiders. She quickly discovers these villagers are hiding something, and she’s learned too much to be allowed to leave. What’s more, no one in England knows where she is.

Why is there no Constable out here? And who is the mysterious Ellen? Captain Williams and his brother’s widow are her only allies, and Bess must take care not to put them at risk as she tries to find answers. But there is a murderer here who is driven to kill again and again. And the next person in his sights is Simon Brandon, searching for Bess and unaware of his danger. . . .

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateSep 18, 2018
ISBN9780062864987
Author

Charles Todd

Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found this book at first, a bit slow to start, but once I got into it, it was very exciting and not the usual murder mystery that I’m used to read and I would recommend it
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Despite all the books listed in these writers works, I had never come across any. I am grateful for LibraryThing for sending me a copy of this book since I enjoyed it immensely. While not high literature, it was a compelling read, mostly because of the setting in isolated rural South Wales after the end of the Great War. The descriptions of the wild country made for a rich visual of the images it conjured. I wondered if a team of authors would be evident in a lack of cohesiveness but it never gave this impression. I will be exploring more of their books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What an awful place to live, with difficult people to live around. How they come up with such story lines, I can't imagine! The book is good enough to read in a day!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The war is over for most people, but for those with serious injuries, the war will never be over. Deemed useless if they are blind, deaf, or missing a limb, the soldiers find that they are no longer wanted for the jobs that they had done before enlisting. For the men of the Welsh regiment and who had worked in the coal mines, they face a bleak future of either being a burden on their family or the country. Many find a way to accidentally kill themselves either before or after going home. Bess Crawford is given two weeks off from her duties at the hospital back in England. A letter from one of the officers disturbs her, and she sets out to find and help him. No longer living with his sister, Captain Williams has moved to an isolated village to help his sister-in-law with the farm she inherited from her parents. He struggles to help her, but it's tough going after losing a leg. Bess is glad to find him, but tells him the other Welsh soldiers have either died from natural causes or killed themselves. He feels it's his duty to help her since her husband, his brother, had been killed in the war.Having arrived very late in the day to this isolated village on the Welsh coast, she spends the night intending to go back to London then on to her parent's house for the remainder of her leave. However, sometime in the night, the cab driver leaves and she is abandoned there with no way to get back to Swansea. There are no police in the town, and the other villagers are extremely icy towards her and Captain Williams which puzzles Bess. As always, the truth is revealed and Bess is allowed to leave. I did like that Bess stayed in one place rather than running around England as she has done in some of the other books. But, I'm not sure I liked the reasoning behind all the secrets. It's very well written and you can almost see the Welsh village from the descriptions.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Atmosphere can make a good murder mystery better. That's why so many memorable mysteries are set in stately country homes and foggy London streets. There's plenty of atmosphere in Charles Todd's new novel, “A Forgotten Place,” and it's one reason this book ranks among the best in the Bess Crawford series. There's so much atmosphere, in fact, that the novel might more accurately be termed a thriller than a mystery.The Great War has recently ended as the story begins, but Bess, a nurse, remains in France caring for those British soldiers still not well enough to be sent home. Of particular concern to her are some Welsh soldiers, mostly coal miners who, as amputees, no longer have jobs waiting for them. For some, suicide looks like their best option.When she's given a few days leave, she decides to track down Captain Williams, one of these soldiers, to determine how he and others in his unit are faring. Not finding him in the mining town where he had lived before the war, she follows him to that "forgotten place," an isolated seacoast village subject to violent storms, both the natural kind and the human kind. She finds the captain living with his brother's widow. She, the widow, seems in love with him, while he still searches for a purpose to his life.Abandoned by the man who takes her to the village, Bess can find no way to leave. What's more, the people of the village seem to not want her to leave. Men, including Captain Williams, are being seriously beaten at night, while Bess observes other men being buried in the darkness, their graves left unmarked. What's going on here, and can Bess discover the answers and still get out of town alive?Todd builds the suspense gradually and, for the most part, believably.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Title: A Forgotten Place (A Bess Crawford Mystery #10)Author: Charles ToddPages: 357 (ARC)Year: 2018Publisher: William MorrowMy rating is 4 out of 5 stars.Bess Crawford is still working in service to the Queen’s military forces as a nurse. The war is over, but the wounded still need care. They didn’t just miraculously heal once the war ended. She is tasked with caring for a Welsh unit that all had amputations. Most came from the mines in Wales, and with their injuries were not sure how they were going to support their families. They felt they would have been better off dying in the war and not returning half a man. Bess encourages them as best she can. They are all released together for the return home journey. A couple of months later Bess receives a letter from their commanding officer, himself an amputee, asking for her help. Several of the troop have died from illness, accident or their own hand. Bess has some time off due her, so she heads to Wales. She plans to spend a day or two there and then return to finish out her leave visiting her parents in England.After tracking down Captain Williams, Bess finds herself on a beautiful but desolate space of land at the furthermost region of Wales. There are no telephones, mail service, grocery stores or police force. The small village is not tolerant of strangers. Once Bess is dropped off by her driver, she plans to leave the next day as a storm approaches. However, during the night her driver takes off, leaving her stranded. Bess has no way to contact anyone, and she soon discovers the villagers have a secret they don’t want known. Bess is now constantly watched wherever she goes. A couple of men are beaten badly, but don’t know the culprit’s identity. There are dead men washing ashore and secretly buried. The village’s wealthy widow seems to visit rarely, but when she does her home is slowly being dismantled from the inside. What is going on? Bess has a sense of justice and curiosity that is going to get her in trouble. Will she end up a permanent resident in the churchyard?I enjoy the mysteries of Charles Todd because they are so much more than just a “whodunnit” for me. The deeper thoughts and psychological aspects of the characters are intriguing. How will a certain character act in a certain situation? How will Bess react? I like watching the characters interact and develop along the path of the story, reaching a conclusion with a twist. Each story can stand alone but does progress in time, so it would be best to start with book one of the series. Enjoy this wonderful British mystery series set during WWI and immediately thereafter!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bess Crawford is a British WWI nurse, and we follow her post war adventures, both personal and professional. She is a satisfying character, and although this is not the best of the series, it continues both her story and the story of post-war Britain for the soldiers and communities as they cope (or not) with the newly constructed world they never wanted. I received this as an Early Reviewer copy through Library Thing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    1919. In an effort to help some of her previous patients Sister Bess Crawford heads into Wales, and ends up in Caudle in the Gower Peninsula. Unfortunately trouble surround her, in a village with its secrets and death.
    An enjoyable story but the village does seem to be full of unlikeable characters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a solid historical mystery, the first I've read by Charles Todd who is a mother/son team. They do an excellent job in the setting and details of life for the soldiers and nurses in the UK after WWI. Bess Crawford is a nurse whose main patients have been a group of Welsh amputees. Many of these men returned from war to find their jobs are gone and life as they knew it totally changed. Bess worries so she heads to Wales to check on them. The news is pretty grim. She ends up in a small village on an isolated peninsula where the reclusive and odd inhabitants are hiding secrets.The mystery part starts a bit slow and Bess spends a lot of time walking around or doing household chores. Once the story picks up, it enthralled me. I love mysteries where I don't know who did it until the very end, and this book fills that bill. I'll be reading more books by this author(s).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first few books of this series were marvelous but they've become formulaic with gaps in logic in the plots.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My interest in nurses on the front lines during World War I began with the BBC's "Testament of Youth" and Lyn MacDonald's The Roses of No Man's Land. When I learned of Charles Todd's series featuring Bess Crawford, I had to get my hands on a copy. I've enjoyed the series ever since, but I have to say that with A Forgotten Place, this series has reached a whole new (and wonderful) level.In reality, A Forgotten Place is a locked room mystery, if you can call an isolated peninsula a room. No one goes there. The police don't come there; the villagers take care of everything themselves. No one has transportation, so if anyone wants to leave, they have to walk miles and miles and miles over rough terrain. Getting letters in and out is left entirely to chance. The weather in December is atrocious, and the villagers are all suspicious, they're all hiding something, and they're Olympic gold medal winners at immediately thinking the worst of anybody or anything. It wasn't long at all before I wanted to run screaming away from the place, but I was trapped there along with Bess, and I simply couldn't leave until Bess could leave. The setting is superb and really set the tone for the entire book.The writing team of Charles Todd always enlightens readers about a certain facet of life during World War I, and this time it's the plight of amputees. In many instances, it would have been kinder for them to have been killed in action. There were no jobs for them when they came home. Often their arrival meant even greater hardship for already poverty-stricken families. It's no wonder their suicide rate was high. The mystery in A Forgotten Place really kept me guessing, and I got to see a side of Bess Crawford's personality that has never really been shown before-- probably because she's never been in a situation like this one. She's always going to fight for anyone who's under her care, and she's always going to fight for the right, but this time, she's also got to fight for her own survival. These villagers are willing to kill to keep their secrets. Every time Bess was forceful with these people and their well-honed complicity of silence, I wanted to cheer aloud. And was I ever glad when Bess and I finally got out of the place.I'm really looking forward to what Bess gets up to next!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is my last Charles Todd mystery. Although I have loved both series, the overwhelming darkness of this book has been difficult for a sensitive person. Didn’t finish it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Nurse Bess Crawford is stranded among stranger suspicious of outsiders in rural Wales. Having read many of the Charles Todd "Ian Rutledge" series I looked forward to this other series, but not impressed. The scenery description parts were quite good, but the main character comes across as more of a do-gooder than the medical professional she claims. And the whole plot point of ship wreck has been done too many times to be a surprise. I'll give the series another try, but not a priority.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The front cover of this book cites a review as saying "an immensely satisfying series." I would agree with that and more. The Bess Crawford series is outstanding.Alas, every series has a dud. This 10th book in the series isn't quite that but it was a slog to get through and most likely, my least favorite book in the series thus far. Bess Crawford finding herself in a godforsaken part of Wales after World War 1 just left me cold.Hoping for better as the series continues.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bess seeks to check in on a group of Welsh invalid soldiers and gets trapped in a desolate, forbidding and forgotten country village. There are secrets here that some residents would kill to preserve. She slowly and at great risk penetrates the centuries old history and current reticence to resolve the several murders and assaults that have been hidden here. As always in this very good series, it has a WW1 connection.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It was 1918, the end of WWI, and fallout from the war continued for returning injured soldiers who could not go home to the life they knew before. Bess Crawford, British nursing sister, tried to encourage and support a group of Welsh coal miners who faced grim prospects knowing that they could not go down into the coal pits to work again. Captain Hugh Williams asked for help with these wounded men, some of whom had already been lost to suicide. When Bess was given a ten day leave from her hospital she first travelled to the Welsh coal mining town where her amputee patients were from then continued on to a remote stormy peninsula in search of Captain Williams. Something strange was going on in this isolated place and Bess was determined to find out what. The authors invoke the sense of something ominous in this area populated with a handful of unfriendly and suspicious people. The plot took a while to get going and almost lost me as a reader. I thought there was a disconnect between the well-researched first portion of the book about returning amputees and the dark mystery of the second half. The last third of the book built up tension well but then the ending seemed hurried. I have enjoyed several books in the Bess Crawford series but did not find this to be one of the better ones.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was the first book I have read in the Bess Crawford series – and I was a little disappointed. I have heard how good the series was – but found this book to be rather slow – and redundant. Bess, a nursing sister during WWI, is learning what life is like after the war. She decides to check on some of her former patients – and ends up in the middle of a murder mystery. I did enjoy the story – but I would have liked it if the story had moved at a little faster pace. I have been reading reviews written by other people – and many feel that this is not the best of the series. Having read those reviews – I do think I will give the series another chance – and read the first one before I make a firm decision about my feelings about this series. I was given this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program in exchange for a fair review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    WWI is over and Bess is now working with the wounded soldiers needing rehabilitation. Many of them are depressed because they have lost limbs and can no longer do the work they did before the war. She’s given a few days off and decides to check on some of her patients who have been sent home, and this brings her to a very isolated peninsula in Wales where no one is friendly and there is something disturbingly odd going on in this little village. Her driver abandons her and there are no phones, mail or police. There’s only one car and the woman drives off and leaves Bess there. Bess didn’t mention where she was going thinking it would be a short trip, and when she doesn’t return, Simon is called to find her.I almost quit after reading the first few chapters because it was so sad reading about these poor depressed veterans and how difficult it was for them and how the war had brought such hard times to England.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sense of place unfolded gradually as suspense built over the unnatural actions of this seafront village in Wales. Bess Crawford's reactions to the suspicions of the small minded villagers is admirable in her unwillingness to sit by whilst injustices and violence are perpetrated. A lot of interesting historic detail of people and place is subtly included, adding to the interest in reading.Well written. Well read. New historical mystery #10 from the mother/son writing team of Charles Todd.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Great War is over, but there are still wounded men who need nurses and Bess Crawford is there to do what she can. This time, however, she gets sidetracked by caring too much for a group of Welshmen who seem overwhelmed by their injuries and the daunting prospect of returning to coal mining country having lost arms and legs and therefore any prospect of making a living. Several of the men commit suicide before leaving the nursing clinic; the remainder are shipped home in a group. Soon after that, she receives a worrisome letter from the leader of the group, and when she is given a short leave, takes it upon herself to travel to Wales in search of the leader and the other men.When she arrives in the hometown, most of the men have died and the leader has disappeared. Bess sets out to track him down, concerned that he too will succumb to suicidal thoughts. The trail leads her into even more desolate country where everyone has a secret and no one wants the truth revealed. Then someone begins viciously attacking men in the village, with each beating resulting in more and more serious injuries until a man is killed. Bess can't leave well enough alone and sticks her nose even further into places it doesn't belong, which results in an attempt on her life too. The culprit is finally brought to justice, but not before another victim's life is claimed. I found this book to be less interesting than the stories when Bess was in France, perhaps because some of the usual characters were missing. Simon is still there, but her parents play only a very peripheral role, and there is no trace of her Australian or American buddies. While this book is a continuation of the series, it could be read alone as there are no story lines which carry over from previous adventures.I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers group in LibraryThing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Title: A Forgotten Place (A Bess Crawford Mystery #10)Author: Charles ToddPages: 357 (ARC)Year: 2018Publisher: William MorrowMy rating is 4 out of 5 stars.Bess Crawford is still working in service to the Queen’s military forces as a nurse. The war is over, but the wounded still need care. They didn’t just miraculously heal once the war ended. She is tasked with caring for a Welsh unit that all had amputations. Most came from the mines in Wales, and with their injuries were not sure how they were going to support their families. They felt they would have been better off dying in the war and not returning half a man. Bess encourages them as best she can. They are all released together for the return home journey. A couple of months later Bess receives a letter from their commanding officer, himself an amputee, asking for her help. Several of the troop have died from illness, accident or their own hand. Bess has some time off due her, so she heads to Wales. She plans to spend a day or two there and then return to finish out her leave visiting her parents in England.After tracking down Captain Williams, Bess finds herself on a beautiful but desolate space of land at the furthermost region of Wales. There are no telephones, mail service, grocery stores or police force. The small village is not tolerant of strangers. Once Bess is dropped off by her driver, she plans to leave the next day as a storm approaches. However, during the night her driver takes off, leaving her stranded. Bess has no way to contact anyone, and she soon discovers the villagers have a secret they don’t want known. Bess is now constantly watched wherever she goes. A couple of men are beaten badly, but don’t know the culprit’s identity. There are dead men washing ashore and secretly buried. The village’s wealthy widow seems to visit rarely, but when she does her home is slowly being dismantled from the inside. What is going on? Bess has a sense of justice and curiosity that is going to get her in trouble. Will she end up a permanent resident in the churchyard?I enjoy the mysteries of Charles Todd because they are so much more than just a “whodunnit” for me. The deeper thoughts and psychological aspects of the characters are intriguing. How will a certain character act in a certain situation? How will Bess react? I like watching the characters interact and develop along the path of the story, reaching a conclusion with a twist. Each story can stand alone but does progress in time, so it would be best to start with book one of the series. Enjoy this wonderful British mystery series set during WWI and immediately thereafter!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    #134. [A Forgotten Place], [[Charles Todd]]Bess Crawford is assigned to a hospital in England that treats soldiers who have lost limbs. She is particularly attached to a small group of Welshmen she first encountered in France. She takes leave and follows them to Wales. They were coal miners and know they have no future and a number of them find a way to kill themselves. Following the only officer she finds herself stranded in an isolated coastal village in which some strange events take place - men buried with no notification to the police, attacks on individuals, including Bess, closed-mouth villagers and treasure from a ship sunk 400 years ago. An interesting read but I think Todd should have ended the series when the war ended. This is too much of a stretch and lacks the quality of the earlier titles.Reviewed September 21, 2018⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The war is over for most people, but for those with serious injuries, the war will never be over. Deemed useless if they are blind, deaf, or missing a limb, the soldiers find that they are no longer wanted for the jobs that they had done before enlisting. For the men of the Welsh regiment and who had worked in the coal mines, they face a bleak future of either being a burden on their family or the country. Many find a way to accidentally kill themselves either before or after going home. Bess Crawford is given two weeks off from her duties at the hospital back in England. A letter from one of the officers disturbs her, and she sets out to find and help him. No longer living with his sister, Captain Williams has moved to an isolated village to help his sister-in-law with the farm she inherited from her parents. He struggles to help her, but it's tough going after losing a leg. Bess is glad to find him, but tells him the other Welsh soldiers have either died from natural causes or killed themselves. He feels it's his duty to help her since her husband, his brother, had been killed in the war.Having arrived very late in the day to this isolated village on the Welsh coast, she spends the night intending to go back to London then on to her parent's house for the remainder of her leave. However, sometime in the night, the cab driver leaves and she is abandoned there with no way to get back to Swansea. There are no police in the town, and the other villagers are extremely icy towards her and Captain Williams which puzzles Bess. As always, the truth is revealed and Bess is allowed to leave. I did like that Bess stayed in one place rather than running around England as she has done in some of the other books. But, I'm not sure I liked the reasoning behind all the secrets. It's very well written and you can almost see the Welsh village from the descriptions.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Wales. This was an interesting glimpse into a part of GB rarely seen in literature. It is difficult to understand the type of isolation described in the novel but the authors did a good job of making us feel it. Not sure how Bess would have gotten out of there if it hadn't been for Simon, he's the one who really did the heavy lifting in this one. When are they going to become a couple anyway?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the story of injured men, many of them amputees, coming home in despair after WWI as they realize they can no longer work at their former jobs and that society in general has no place for them and even their families often see them as a burden. Added to this background is the story of Bess Crawford intent on finding out the fate of the men she has nursed as she follows them to Wales and eventually to an isolated headland where she finds secrets galore and unexplained behavior among the inhabitants that eventually lead to brutal killings. She wants to investigate but is afraid of causing harm to the people who have taken her in and treated her with kindness. The plot and characters were well done but I found myself getting restless as Bess is rebuffed so many times by the villagers until Simon comes to help her finally solve the mysteries.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's December, 1918. The war has ended. The soldiers who lived through the war are heading home. Many are broken men, having lost limbs to mortars or eyes and lungs to gas. Nurse, Sister Bess Crawford, is concerned for the men of the Welsh unit that had recently left her care. While on leave, she seeks them out only to find that many could not endure their brokenness. She finds amputee, Captain Hugh Williams, recovering on the far remote end of the Gower Peninsula in the care of his brother's wife, Rachel, widowed by war. Bess' Swansea driver, frightened by ghostly legends, abandons Bess in the middle of the night leaving her with no means of transportation back to civilization. She soon discovers that the village's folks are suspicious of outsiders and are tightly guarding their collective secrets. She wants nothing more than to return home but the villagers, in their efforts to guard their own secrets, thwart her efforts. It only gets worse from there.There are several mysteries here which Bess tries to unravel. Captain Williams cautions her to let it go and not look for trouble. That, of course, is not in Bess' make up. She heals the sick and wounded and seeks truth and justice.Charles Todd, a mother/son writing team have delivered yet another exquisitely written story. This one is atmospheric and painterly in its scene setting. The characters are well developed and each is vulnerable in their own way. I am grateful to William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for having provided a free copy of this book. Their generosity, however, did not influence this review - the words of which are mine alone.Synopsis (from book's back cover):Though the Great War has ended, Bess Crawford finds herself caught in deadly circumstances on a remote Welsh headland in this tenth entry from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author.The fighting has ended, the Armistice signed, but the war has left wounds that are still agonizingly raw. Battlefield Nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees, and the Welsh patients worry her. She does her best to help them, but it’s clear that they have nothing to go home to, in a valley where only the fit can work in the coal pits. When they are released, she fears that peace will do what war couldn’t—take their lives.Their officer, Captain Williams, writes to describe their despair, and his own at trying to save his men. Bess feels compelled to look into their situation, but the Army and the clinic can do nothing. Requesting leave, she quietly travels to Wales, and that bleak coal mining village, but she is too late.Captain Williams’ sister tells Bess he has left the valley. Bess is afraid he intends to kill himself. She follows him to an isolated, storm-battered peninsula—a harsh and forgotten place where secrets and death go hand in hand. Deserted by her frightened driver, Bess is stranded among strangers suspicious of outsiders. She quickly discovers these villagers are hiding something, and she’s learned too much to be allowed to leave. What’s more, no one in England knows where she is.Why is there no Constable out here? And who is the mysterious Ellen? Captain Williams and his brother’s widow are her only allies, and Bess must take care not to put them at risk as she tries to find answers. But there is a murderer here who is driven to kill again and again. And the next person in his sights is Simon Brandon, searching for Bess and unaware of his danger . . .
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd transports me to wild, vibrant Wales and to a time after WWI when the world attempts to recover from the horrors of war. The Welsh men that have survived the trenches, but have lost a limb, must attempt to return to a job and family. A Forgotten Place depicts the suffering and despair of these returning veterans. The description of the men elicits a grim picture of the war’s aftermath, with most of the men committing suicide rather than becoming a burden for the family. Charles Todd, the mother-son writing team paints a vivid scene of the Welsh community and the harshness of life by the sea, which is intensified by the music and language of the Welsh. The story showed me the frustration and loneliness caused by a war, and that life does not return to normal as soon as the war ends.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I've read all of the prior Bess Crawford books and was wondering how they would turn out once the Great War ended. This book answers that question, and deals honestly with problems the returning injured soldiers faced. In today's world where we can communicate almost instantly with a text, it was interesting to see how isolated small towns could be in the early 1900's as Bess is stranded without mail or transportation. I struggled to finish the last book in the series, but thought that Forgotten Place regained the readability of the earlier novels. I received a free copy from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Imagine yourself a Nursing Sister in Britain at the end of WWI. The War to End Wars. It didn’t, of course, but there was hope. Also imagine you are working I in convalescent hospital filled with amputees of one sort or another. Most of them are Welsh miners waiting to go home to what? Nothing. They can no longer work in the pits, can’t earn money for their families and so they begin to die. By suicide.Bess Crawford is the nurse whose heart goes out to all the men, but one Welsh group in particular. Their Captain is as despondent as the rest but she somehow rouses him out of self-pity to take charge of his men. When they are finally released her worries go with them because she is sure that, one by one they will fall by the wayside.This book is amazing! The authors have created a story of war with no peace at the end. When Bess goes in search of her Welsh patients, the surroundings, the poverty and the beauty of Wales is brought to the fore.She ends up in a village of mysterious residents, unfriendly, vicious, unyielding. She ends up marooned there when her lorry driver leaves in the middle of the night. The village gets odder the stakes higher and Bess is trying her level best to figures it all out and to get out before something happens to her.An excellent choice of book which will be out in September. There are several other books in the Bess Crawford series and I think you may want to check then out as well.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was delighted to read an advance copy of the latest Bess Crawford mystery, A Forgotten Place. I have loved the entire series, but I found this one the best in the series so far. It was a wonderful surprise to find a book deep in a series so exciting. I couldn't put the book down. The scenario was very suspenseful, and the locale was unique and fascinating. It also brought to life the difficulties of injured soldiers returning to their homes after the war. It could be read as a stand-alone book, although I recommend the entire series. I highly recommend this book and look forward to the next.