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A cruel deception / Charles Todd.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Todd, Charles. Bess Crawford mystery ; Publisher: New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019]Edition: First editionDescription: 303 pages ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780062859839 :
  • 0062859838
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared. Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war's wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra's. Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping. When she does locate Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who has walked away from his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. When she confronts him with the dangers of using laudanum, he tells her that he doesn't care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can't confide in Bess--because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing--still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help. But where to begin on her own? What is driving this man to a despair so profound it can only end with death? The war? Something that happened in Paris? To prevent a tragedy, she must get at the truth as quickly as possible--which means putting herself between Lieutenant Minton and whatever is destroying him. Or is it whoever?
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Item type Current library Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Phillipsburg Free Public Library Adult Fiction Adult Fiction FIC TODD Available 36748002454686
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"As always, Todd's intense feelings for the traumatized survivors of war make one mother's son the broken hero of an entire generation of lost souls." -- The New York Times Book Review

In the aftermath of World War I, English nurse Bess Crawford attempts to save a troubled officer from a mysterious killer in this eleventh book in the acclaimed Bess Crawford mystery series.

The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties involved. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared.

Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war's wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra's.

Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for Lawrence Minton. When she finally locates him, instead of the intelligent, ambitious officer she expects, she finds a bitter and disturbed man who has abdicated his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. Indeed, he tells her that he doesn't care if he lives or dies, he only wants oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? It seems the truth is buried so deep in his mind that he can only relive it in wild nightmares. When Minton goes missing, bent on suicide, Bess must race to unlock his past before he succeeds.

Reluctant to trust an officer in Minton's regiment, a man with secrets of his own, and uncertain of the loyalties of Matron's friends in Paris, Bess must rely on her own instincts and experience--and sometimes in desperation on a stranger who claims he never met Minton.

Could whatever happened to Minton in Paris somehow be connected to his war? And why did he not kill Bess when he had the chance--then later, viciously attack her without warning? What is destroying Lieutenant Minton? Or is it who? And what horror will she have to confront, if she is to save him?

In this, the eleventh novel in the award-winning Bess Crawford series, New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd delivers a rich and atmospheric portrait that illuminates the cost of war on human lives--the lingering pain and horror that no peace, no matter how earned, can assuage.

The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared. Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war's wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra's. Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping. When she does locate Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who has walked away from his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. When she confronts him with the dangers of using laudanum, he tells her that he doesn't care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can't confide in Bess--because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing--still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help. But where to begin on her own? What is driving this man to a despair so profound it can only end with death? The war? Something that happened in Paris? To prevent a tragedy, she must get at the truth as quickly as possible--which means putting herself between Lieutenant Minton and whatever is destroying him. Or is it whoever?

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

By 1919, the army hospitals are closing in England, and Sister Bess Crawford expects a reassignment when she's called to the nursing headquarters. Instead, the matron asks her to take on a personal case. Matron's son, Lawrence, was to participate in the peace talks in Paris, but he hasn't been in meetings. Worried about Lawrence, who was wounded in the war and, like so many other soldiers, and might now have a drug dependency, she asks Bess to go to Paris to track down her son. Bess's father, who is involved in the peace talks, is too busy to help her as she travels from Paris to St. Ives, searching for Lawrence. It becomes a dangerous job for Bess, as she finds a man haunted by his past and threatened by an unknown enemy who even follows Bess to Paris and tries to kill her. VERDICT The 11th "Bess Crawford" historical mystery, following A Forgotten Place, will appeal to readers of the series and possibly fans of Jacqueline Winspear's "Maisie Dobbs" books. However, most readers will find it slow going and plodding with little mystery. [See Prepub Alert, 2/25/19.]--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Publishers Weekly Review

Set in 1919, bestseller Todd's sluggish 11th whodunit featuring British nurse Bess Crawford (after 2018's A Forgotten Place) finds Bess trying to figure out what direction her postwar career should take while serving in a Wiltshire surgical clinic. She's summoned to London to meet with the chief of nursing, Mrs. Minton, whose son, Lawrence, is in Paris as part of the British delegation attending the peace conference. A friend has informed Mrs. Minton that, despite Lawrence's contrary assurances, he hasn't been attending meetings. Bess agrees to travel to France and look into Lawrence's circumstances. When she finally tracks down Lawrence in a small village, she discovers he's addicted to laudanum and plagued by somnambulism. During one encounter while he was sleepwalking, Lawrence cries out not to be judged, because he "tried." The source of his guilt is disclosed only toward the end, making it anticlimactic and giving Bess less time to do actual sleuthing. This is a subpar entry in a generally superior series. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore and Co. (Oct.)

Booklist Review

In the eleventh Bess Crawford mystery, it's 1919. The Great War has ended, but a peace accord has yet to be signed. It's an uncomfortable, waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop moment in history. Battlefield nurse Bess Crawford has been tending to the wounded in England and spending a great deal of time pondering what she will do with her life now that the world is no longer at war. But personal concerns are put aside when, once again, Bess finds herself involved in a bewildering mystery: Why is a former soldier, who now works at the Paris Peace Conference, in fear for his life? Could it be that someone is actually trying to kill him? As usual, Todd mixes historical verisimilitude with exemplary character design and sharp plotting. Another fine entry in this popular series.--David Pitt Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Five months after the Armistice, nursing sister Bess Crawford (A Forgotten Place, 2018, etc.) gets yet another painful reminder that for all too many, the Great War has never ended.Plucked from her clinic in Wiltshire, Bess is volunteered by Matron Helena Minton for a very personal errand: to travel to Paris and ascertain why the Matron's son, Lt. Lawrence Minton, hasn't appeared for weeks at the peace talks to which he's been assigned as a minor attach. Is he still suffering the aftereffects of the wound he got last October? Has he become dependent on the drugs given him to fight the effects of his injury? Matron wants to find out quietly without pursuing the official inquiries that could end her son's army career with the regiment of Bess' father, Col. Richard Crawford. Arriving in France, Bess follows Lawrence's trail to the village of St. Ives, where he's living with schoolteacher Marina Lascelles, a family friend whose father's life he once saved. Bess immediately sees the signs of his addiction to laudanum, a debilitating appetite that's clearly incapacitated him for diplomatic service. She's even more concerned when she realizes that the reason he started taking the drug was to escape his crippling sense of guilt over yet another of the wartime traumas in which Todd specializes. After many episodes of conflict, self-torment, and uncontrollable behavior, Dr. Michel Moreau, Bess' nominal host in Paris while she secretly takes up residence in St. Ives, suggests the radical step of hypnotizing Lawrence to recover the searing memories he's suppressed. Lawrence proves a ready subject, but several sessions only gradually reveal the story of "the angel" that's been tormenting him, and even once he's revealed the story, the truth behind it remains to be disclosed.Sensitive, beautifully written, disconcertingly familiar in all but the circumstantial details of the underlying horror, and much too long. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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