DEBORAH CROMBIE: Summer is really here! There's a new Bess Crawford novel from Charles Todd, an event I look forward to every year! Now I just need a little vacation day so that I can read it straight through!
For those who aren't familiar with the series, "Charles Todd" is mother/son writing partners Caroline and Charles, and they write two series, one featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, set after WWI, and one featuring English nurse Bess Crawford, set during the war--and now after .
This 12th Bess Crawford novel sees the war over and Bess trying to chart a new course for herself. It takes her to Ireland for the first time. I wanted to know what drew the Todds to Ireland in this complicated post-war period. (Every time I learn even a little about Irish history, I realize how much I don't know.) Caroline explains:
CAROLINE TODD: Bess Crawford took us to the Great War to show how women stepped up to do their bit. We followed her through the worst of the fighting to the Armistice and the Peace Treaty—even to the tragedy of men who were to become the long term wounded…
But there was one story we hadn’t told—that of the Irish Troubles—because it was a problem that wouldn’t go away for much of the 20th century.
The Irish had been struggling to find a path to home rule, and London made promises, but nothing seemed to come of it. When war was declared in 1914, Irishmen enlisted in the British Army, in the hope that their service would be rewarded when it was over—dying for Britain in the worst of the fighting.
But others felt this was not going to move London—and the Easter 1916 Rising in Dublin sent Irishmen into the streets to take their freedom with armed insurrection. It was put down, the ringleaders executed—and people who had had mixed feelings about the Rising suddenly found themselves supporting the Cause.
And when the soldiers who had fought for Britain in France returned, they were treated not as heroes, but as traitors, shunned by their own people.
Into this turmoil, Bess is asked to stand up for Eileen, the Irish nurse who nearly died when Britannic went down in A Duty to the Dead. She has healed, her fiancé has just come home from France—and she wants to be married in Ireland in spite of high feelings against both of them. But Bess’s family is worried for her safety, and the only way they can see for her to travel is by aircraft. In and out for the wedding….
But it doesn’t quite work out as everyone hopes!
And before she knows it, Bess is involved in kidnapping, murder, no idea where to put her trust, and even dragged to a prison cell!
She feels a duty to help those caught in the middle of what is happening—and learns something about her own heart—but how she can save others when she herself is threatened?
DEBS: There is a great flying scene in the beginning of the book, and of course I thought of Caroline and Charles' adventure going up in a biplane.
Now I call that serious research!
But I've never been to Ireland, and I want to know more about their Irish background. Caroline and Charles, is Bess's friend's village a real place? Did you get all the material you needed for this book before the pandemic? Tell us more!
And REDS and readers, have you visited Ireland?
