A Duty to the Dead

by Charles Todd Book 1 in the Bess Crawford Mysteries series.

First published 2009

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4.3(2,662)

In November 1916, nursing sister Bess Crawford survives the sinking of the hospital ship Britannic carrying a final message from a dying officer. When she delivers it to his family in Kent, she finds a household bound together by grief, resentment and a secret concerning another son whose treatment has never been properly explained. Bess’s promise becomes an investigation when a new death suggests that the family’s version of events cannot be trusted.

The novel introduces Bess as both a wartime nurse and an amateur detective whose sense of duty prevents her from walking away. The loss of the Britannic, the strain placed on military families and the moral authority granted to officers and doctors shape a mystery about obligation, inheritance and the damage concealed behind respectable domestic life.