How many wartime casualties and heroics from Bess does it take to exhaust a reader? Unfortunately, exactly this many,...
Plucky battlefield nurse Bess Crawford (A Bitter Truth, 2011, etc.) fights World War I diseases, deserters and more.
When Pvt. Wilson, heading up the burial detail, notices that one of the corpses has no wounds except for a broken neck, he summons nurse Bess Crawford to decide what to do. Bess recognizes the victim as Maj. Vincent Carson, a former member of her father’s old regiment. But before she can get a message to her dad, the Col. Sahib, she’s stricken with influenza, falls into a coma, and is shipped home from Ypres to Dorset. In recovery, she volunteers at Somerset’s Longleigh House clinic, where a wounded Yank, Capt. Thomas Barclay, becomes semismitten and helps her investigate who might have wanted Carson dead. Simon Brandon, her father’s former batman now handling classified assignments for the government, also tries to help, but is seriously wounded before making much headway. Bess returns to France, as does the Yank. Soon enough she must face death twice, confront a deserter with good intentions, shoot a purported British officer in the head, sort through the whereabouts and motives of seven brothers, keep tabs on the Kaiser and the Prince of Wales, and worry about poor Simon’s state of health. Her father will have to step in to see to her safety, but peripatetic Bess, who crosses the channel innumerable times, sets matters right.
How many wartime casualties and heroics from Bess does it take to exhaust a reader? Unfortunately, exactly this many, despite the author’s fierce antiwar sentiments. Readers weary of Bess can take refuge in Todd's Ian Rutledge series (The Confession, 2012, etc.).Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-201572-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.
An Arizona accountant with a penchant for solving murders lands a fishy case.
Sophie "Phee" Kimball might lead a dull life if it weren’t for her mother, Harriet Plunkett, and Harriet’s neurotic Chiweenie, Streetman. As it is, Harriet lives near her daughter in Sun City West and has a wide circle of zany friends who’ve helped Phee solve several mysteries (Molded 4 Murder, 2019, etc.) while she’s been working for Williams Investigations along with her boyfriend, Marshall, a former police officer. While Phee’s visiting Harriet one day, Streetman dashes over to the neighbors’ barbecue grill and unearths a dead body under a tarp. As usual, the overwhelmed local police ask Williams Investigations to help—er, consult. Harriet’s main concern is getting costumes made for the reluctant Streetman, whom she’s entered in a series of contests starting with Halloween and progressing through Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and St. Patrick’s Day. One of her friends is an accomplished seamstress who goes all out making gorgeous costumes that will beat an obnoxious lady who looks down on mutts. The dead man is identified as Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor, who was poisoned by the locally ubiquitous sago pine. At the first dog contest, Elaine Meschow has to be rushed to the hospital after she gets a dose of the same thing. The owner of a gourmet dog food company, Elaine is lucky enough to recover. After Streetman takes second place, Harriet’s team redoubles its efforts for the next contest while Phee and Marshall, who are moving into a new place together, continue to hunt for clues. A restaurant holdup and a scheme to use empty houses for hookups for high school kids add to the confusion.
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2455-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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