An Impartial Witness (Bess Crawford, #2)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

An Impartial Witness (Bess Crawford #2)

by Charles Todd (Goodreads Author)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 1,667 ratings · 296 reviews

In the early summer of 1917, Bess Crawford is charged with escorting a convoy of severely wounded soldiers from the trenches of France to England. Among them is a young pilot, burned beyond recognition, who carries a photograph of his wife pinned to his tunic. But later, in a crowded railway station, Bess sees the same woman bidding a heart-wrenching farewell to a departin...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published August 16th 2011 by William Morrow Paperbacks (first published September 1st 2010)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,613)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 17, 2012 Annette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: war-through-the-generations-challen

Bess Crawford is a nursing sister in World War I and stationed in France. When the book begins it is the summer of 1917 and she is transporting wounded soldiers back to London. Amongst these soldiers is a burned pilot named Lt. Meriweather Evanson. Pinned to his lapel jacket is a photograph of his wife Marjorie Evanson. Bess is given a 36 hour pass in London before going back to France. At the train station she sees a woman saying goodbye to a soldier. This woman looks exactly like the woman in...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 24, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The second in the Todds’ (Charles and his mother) new Bess Crawford Mystery series was an interesting yarn set in World War I, before the U.S. entered the war. Bogged down in France, Bess Crawford works among the nursing corps. But one afternoon, after leaving a seriously burned British pilot at a hospital to continue his recovery, Bess sees a familiar face, mired in tears, at a train station, saying goodbye to a soldier obviously returning to the war.

The face, she realizes, belongs to the wife...more

like · see review

Feb 08, 2012 Maureen E rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, mystery

I started Maisie Dobbs, but the library I'm at the most doesn't have the second book. I remembered that Jess had recommended the Bess Crawford books recently, so I picked up the first one.

In general, I like historical mysteries, so these two had that going for them from the beginning. Also, I've been a bit passionate about WWI since high school, when we read the war poets.

The Bess Crawford books, so far, take place during the war rather than after it (as with Maisie Dobbs). This fact adds a sen...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 27, 2011 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked this one so much better than the first one - glad I went ahead and read it after my disappointment with the beginning of the series. With this story she sees a woman on a train platform crying and despondent while talking to a man that is not her husband. Bess knows this for she has been nursing the husband through injuries suffered in WWI. When the woman is murdered Bess does her duty and goes to the police to report what she's seen. I do find the reasons she gets involved in the invest...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jul 12, 2011 AJ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I like historical mystery novels, and World War I is a new era for me in this genre. I've been reading Jaqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs novels also, although that character's New Age-iness has been getting on my nerves a little. Charles Todd's (a mother-son writing team actually, which boggles the mind...not the parent-child relationship, but the back and forth writing) books are quite grounded in contrast, although there is quite a bit of convenient coincidence to this battlefield nurse being...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 15, 2011 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

World War I nurse Bess Crawford is back in England, doggedly figuring out who murdered the wife of one of her badly-injured patients. Spending less time in France on the battlefield and more time with those remaining at home, this second-in-the-series novel evolves into the gentle form of the classic English murder mystery.

Among the intriguing continuing bits in the series are the references to the Crawford family's time spent in India. Please take Bess back there in a future book. Her father's...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 07, 2011 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, mysteries, books-set-in-england

I've been reading a fair amount about World War I in the past several months, everything from All Quiet on the Western Front to John Keegan's The First World War (which I'm finding slow going and haven't finished yet). I've also watched some films such as A Farewell to Arms (with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes) and Passchendaele, and of course I've continued to read some of the mysteries set in WWI and its aftermath, by authors such as Jacqueline Winspear, Carola Dunn, Anne Perry, and not least, th...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 04, 2011 Nell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I'm having a little trouble with the conceit of this series. A young woman goes around asking questions that are none of her business of people, who are sometimes hostile to the investigation, who answer those questions even aginst their own interests. I don't recall that other mystery series I read centered around amateur sleuths have protagonists who are quite this confrontational. And it seems odd to me that in World War I, when supplies, especially petrol, would have been in short supply, th...more

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 12, 2011 Pmalcpoet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The minute I see a new Charles Todd mystery at my local library, I snatch it from the shelves and check it out. The author writes authentic period mysteries: the Ian Rutledge series is set in England during the post-WWI era, and the new Bess Crawford series takes place during the war itself. This book is the second featuring Bess, who is a nursing sister at the front in France. Bess has escorted a group of patients home to England, one of whom, a burn victim, she has nursed for some time. He has...more

like · see review

Jan 02, 2011 Shana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't read a good mystery in a long time. For a change I picked this book as one of my Amazon Vine selections. This is the second of the author's new series. The amateur sleuth here is Bess Crawford. Bess is a very compassionate nurse who works very close to the front lines during WWI. One of the soldiers she was treating held his wife's photo near him at all times. When Bess is on leave she witnesses this soldiers wife very upset in what seems to be a compromising position. When the soldier...more

like · see review

Dec 06, 2010 Spuddie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review refers to the audio version.

#2 Bess Crawford historical mystery set during WWI in England. Bess, a nurse, is escorting several patients back to a care facility in England from the battles in France. While she is at the train station making her own way back to London for a quick twenty-four hour leave, she recognizes a woman on the platform as Mrs. Evenson--the wife of one of the severely burned men she has just deposited. He carried her picture with him all the time, so Bess would b...more

like · see review

Nov 27, 2010 Bridget rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads

This book was quite enjoyable, and is the second in a series featuring Bess Crawford, a WWI nurse whose home is England.

In this installment, Bess is accompanying a group of wounded soldiers home from France to England. One of the soldiers that she cares for, who is severely wounded, has a photo of his wife pinned to his garment. After taking the soldiers to the appropriate hospital, Bess is at a train station when she notices a tearful goodbye between a woman and a man who looks like an officer...more

like · see review

Nov 08, 2010 Dee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bess Crawford is a British nurse going from the trenches in France to England in 1917. She happens to see a man and woman saying goodbye to one another at a train she is catching back to France, and recognizes the face of the wife of one of her patients. The man she is saying goodbye to is not her husband, who Bess just left at a nursing home in Kent!

This woman turns up dead the next day. Bess does he civic duty, and tells Scotland Yard that she saw this woman with a man at the train station the...more

like · see review

Oct 05, 2010 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Early Summer, 1917

“The burn victim, swathed in bandages…was frightful to see, his skin still raw and weeping, his eyes his only recognizable feature. I knew and he knew that in spite of all his doctors could do, it would never be enough. The face he’d once had was gone, and in its place would be something that frightened children and made women flinch….he had a framed photograph of his wife pinned to his tunic, and it was what kept him alive, not our care.”

Bess Crawford has just escorted more o...more

“Early Summer, 1917

“The burn victim, swathed in bandages…was frightful to see, his skin still raw and weeping, his eyes his only recognizable feature. I knew and he knew that in spite of all his doctors could do, it would never be enough. The face he’d once had was gone, and in its place would be something that frightened children and made women flinch….he had a framed photograph of his wife pinned to his tunic, and it was what kept him alive, not our care.”

Bess Crawford has just escorted more of the wounded and maimed to England from the battlefields of France. She has a few hours in London before having to return to the battle field hospital and all she wants is to sleep. As she walks through the train station, she notices a woman crying inconsolably, a man in uniform standing near her but not comforting her. As Bess walks by, the woman lifts her head and Bess knows, without question that the woman is the wife of Lieutenant Meriwether Evanson, the burn victim. She has seen that picture too often not to be certain of the woman’s identity. Bess watches the man board the train without a backward glance. The woman, still crying, hurries from the station. Bess tries to follow her but she disappears into the crowd.

Back in France, Bess sees a pen-and-ink drawing of a woman with the caption, “Police Ask for Witnesses – Evanson Murder Still Unsolved.” Bess sends a letter to Scotland Yard and is most surprised to be sent back to England for an interview with Inspector Herbert. She might not have seen much but she is the only person to have come forward with any information. Before she returns to France, she decides to visit Lieutenant Evanson; when she arrives at the hospital, she is told that the lieutenant had killed himself six days earlier. He had been despondent since learning of his wife’s murder.

Bess returns to France and seems to be granted an inordinate amount of leave for a nurse working on the front lines of battle. This allows her to visit many people, new friends and old, so she can find the man with the Wiltshire Regiment badge, whose face she didn’t see clearly, at the train station with Marjorie Evanson just before she was killed.

The body count rises as more deaths of young officers recuperating near London are reported. Then another woman is attacked in the same manner as Majorie Evanson. Who knew both women well enough to want them dead?

I enjoyed this book more than the first Bess Crawford, A DUTY TO THE DEAD. AN IMPARTIAL WITNESS could have had the length shortened a good bit if the authors eliminated some of the characters who make very brief appearances. The authors people the story with army officers but, for most, they give so little detail that it is difficult to find a personality that would make them memorable or help separate one from another.

The Ian Rutledge series suits me much better. Rutledge is a damaged man doing a serious job in a society that has changed drastically since the end of the war. Bess is a nurse working on the battle fields of France but without that commitment, she would be just another middle class woman spending her time in socially acceptable ways until marriage. That Scotland Yard, understaffed as it would be in war time, readily includes a private citizen, and a woman, in the investigation of murder is a stretch to say the least.

The Bess Crawford series is enjoyable. The twelve books of the Ian Rutledge series cover one year. Hopefully, Bess’s experiences will be spread out as well.(less)

like · see review

Oct 01, 2010 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audio-books, 2010-mysteries

An Impartial Witness, by Charles Todd, B-plus, narrated by Rosalind Landor, produced by BBC America Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

The second in the WWI nurse Bess Crawford series. In this one, Bess cares for a soldier in France on the battle front who is gravely wounded but keeps a picture of his wife pinned to his clothes to remind himself why he should live. When Bess goes on leave, just as she is getting off the train in London, she sees a group of troops boarding on their way to war. Sh...more

like · see review

Sep 08, 2010 LJ rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900s_early, amateur_sleuth, england, france, historical, mystery, ww1_1914-18

First Sentence: As my train pulled into London, I looked out at the early summer rain and was glad to see the dreary day had followed me from Hampshire.

WWI battlefield nurse Bess Crawford cared for a badly burned young pilot who had a picture of his wife visibly displayed. In a train station traveling on leave back to London, Bess happens to see the wife who is clearly upset as she sees off a different soldier. Although somewhat perplexed by the scene, it is nothing to the shock Bess feels when...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 07, 2013 Ren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013, mystery, historical, kindle

I was torn between giving the book three or four stars, but it dragged on for too long towards the end and the conclusion was very abrupt. It's as if the writers had realized that they'd backed themselves into a corner and needed the killer to do something stupid because otherwise Bess would never catch them.

The title feels more than a little out of place since, despite all of her claims about impartiality, Bess sets out to prove that the police have the wrong man and disregards all evidence to...more

like · see review

Sep 27, 2010 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I received this First Reads book in the mail as I was finishing Maisie Dobbs--a light mystery about a WW1 nurse. Bess Crawford, the heroine of this novel, is also a nurse during the the First World War and a very brave and dashing young woman for her era.

If I had not just completed the Maisie Dobbs book I think I would have enjoyed this book in a different way. It is interesting for me to read these fictional first-person battlefield accounts of the brutality and hardships of the war. This book...more

like · see review

Feb 07, 2013 Luffy Monkey D. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading most of the book, I found myself awarding four stars to An Impartial Witness. I thought soon after, that if the fate of Michael Hart is not written in the book, it will be a perfect score. Maybe that was a too weird ending to hope for, since one way or another, the reader must be shown some reward.

After what felt like a slew of indifferent books I've read, I welcome the quality of this book. Charles Todd are writers(mother and son) that decide correctly when to go into detail and...more After reading most of the book, I found myself awarding four stars to An Impartial Witness. I thought soon after, that if the fate of Michael Hart is not written in the book, it will be a perfect score. Maybe that was a too weird ending to hope for, since one way or another, the reader must be shown some reward.

After what felt like a slew of indifferent books I've read, I welcome the quality of this book. Charles Todd are writers(mother and son) that decide correctly when to go into detail and when not to. Keeping the brevity of many a scene, I'm amazed that this book clocked in at over 300 pages. At least two writers exist who can relate to the economy of the descriptive. Details and their importance are part of the writer's craft, but they are used with too broad a brush, methinks.

The logistics of Bess Crawford, a nurse with a military family serving in World War 1; her travels to and fro from France to England, when and why she meets whom, all of this mean that she has not the luxury of time. Moreover she is doubly damned when a dear friend of hers awaits the gallows in a few days. These restrictions and the ever increasing frantic thoughts of our heroine duel incessantly, and Bess is nearer to nervous breakdown than in the first book.

Since Bess Crawford is not a detective, the way she is dismissed from people in authority may ring true with younger readers. This is one of the deft touches that make this book worth reading. Being seen as meddling, curious beyond courtesy, sharply clairvoyant, and not ignorable empowers her inch by inch. Just as the English army gains or surrenders yards of land in turn, so does Bess Crawford in her assumptions and guesses which hit the mark more often as the book nears its end.

The scene of Marjorie crying at the train station is one which appeals to our sense of compassion. What she has done may be wrong, but she is framed in that defining scene. It's that time capsule - hell after all this IS a historical mystery - which fuels Bess in her investigation. She repeats her being witness to that scene, to people she wants to question, with the regularity of government agents showing their credentials. Here is where the author ups the ante. A woman guilty of adultery is murdered. The reader must decide how they feel. In the end I agree with what Bess said, that Marjorie didn't invite this tragedy on herself.

Her last day on earth was rotten. There is something that is remarkable in this story. Marjorie Evanson falls for Jack Melton because - my intuition - the latter preyed on her loneliness. She shuns the ever more noble and handsomer Michael Hart for Jack. As a result she loses everything, and both Michael and Jack too lose their social and actual health. The murder and the attempted murder take their toll on the Harts family, Serena, who is Jack's wife, and there's also the inspector in charge of the investigation. All of them have their resources tapped to the point of taxation. If only Marjorie had acknowledged the love in the eyes of Michael. That's how real the characters were to me.(less)

like · see review

Jun 14, 2012 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: full-review, 2012

This is the second book in the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd, which I read directly on the heels of the first.

***Plot Summary***

Once again, Bess Crawford finds herself at the center of a mystery when she sees the wife of a burn patient, whom she recognizes from the photograph that her patient carries with him always, saying farewell to a man at a train station as she boards her train to return to the war front. She can see that the goodbye is emotionally draining for the woman, and that s...more This is the second book in the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd, which I read directly on the heels of the first.

***Plot Summary***

Once again, Bess Crawford finds herself at the center of a mystery when she sees the wife of a burn patient, whom she recognizes from the photograph that her patient carries with him always, saying farewell to a man at a train station as she boards her train to return to the war front. She can see that the goodbye is emotionally draining for the woman, and that she appears fraught and upset, while the man is cold and uncaring. It isn't long after her return to the front that she receives a newspaper that contains news of the woman's murder on that same day, obviously shortly after Bess has seen her at the station.

When Bess learns that her patient has committed suicide after learning of his wife's murder, she takes it upon herself to try to find out who has committed the murder, and why.

***Review***

Once again, this book successfully immersed me in the life of WWI England. Bess Crawford is a warmly likeable character, a nurse, who moves between civilian life and military life in a way that seems very natural. I am a bit skeptical that movement between the war front and England was quite so easy as these books make it out to be, given that all of the characters seem to flit back and forth between London and the French front with about as much as difficulty as I have driving my car to my local grocery store for a gallon of milk. This is a small thing, though, and is a necessary plot device given that most of the primary characters are, in some way, associated with the war effort.

I am enjoying the ongoing character development of Bess, Simon, and her parents. I don't know if we are moving in the direction of a romance developing between Bess and Simon, but that is definitely one possible narrative arc for the books.

As for the mystery in this case, it was rather easily solved when it came right down to it. With any mystery novel, though, the investigation is more of the point than the solution, and the authors did a good job of moving the story along and maintaining interest. Bess is, perhaps, not as quick as some of the amateur sleuths, as she seems, sometimes, to fail to make connections that seem fairly obvious to the reader.

One of the things that I really liked about this book, though, is the focus on the war wives, and how difficult it was to serve your country by keeping the homefires burning. Often, the focus is on the hardships suffered by the soldiers, and make no mistake about it - their hardships were the greater. However, I think that acknowledging that it isn't easy to be the one left behind made for an interesting story in this novel.

Once again, I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to historical mystery readers. It's well-written and well-edited and a solid, if slightly uninspired, example of the genre.(less)

like · see review

Jul 13, 2012 Bonnie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I basically enjoyed this book, but I found myself thinking most of the way through it that I couldn't quite believe in the main character, Bess Crawford. I had the same problem in the first book. She gets a lot more involved in the lives of people she hardly knows than I can imagine anyone doing. Also, at one point she visits a very hostile person whom she hardly knows alone at night - sort of a "never, never do this" action that no one with half a brain would do. I frequently found myself with...more

like · see review

Jun 01, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, mystery, read-in-2011, reviewed, series

Bess Crawford escorts a number of injured soldiers back from the front in France, during WWI. One of the men is a badly burned pilot who has a photo of his wife taped to his chest, as though she is his reason to go on living.

After delivering the patients to the clinic, she is given leave and at a train station sees a woman bidding a tearful goodbye to a soldier going to the front. When the woman turns, Bess realizes that it is Marjorie Evanson, the pilot's wife. Bess feels badly that the pilot i...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 07, 2012 Deena rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bosler, historical-fiction, mystery

I didn't like it, but i didn't hate it either, so I didn't feel able to give it a single star.

For me, the problem with this book is that I just didn't care. I didn't like any of the characters (to the extent that they're even developed), and I didn't care abut the plot, which had nothing new to offer. Bess is an arrogant brat: her interference is explained to the reader as an over-developed sense of duty (blamed on her military father), but for me it just comes across as arrogance. Bess "must" i...more

like · see review

Sep 01, 2011 Ariel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-bess-crawford

This is my second Bess Crawford novel after having previously read a Duty to the Dead. In this novel we find Bess involving herself in other people affairs when she nurses a badly burned pilot who carries his wife's picture on his person. Shortly after returning to England, Bess witnesses the wife and a possible lover having an interlude at the train station. The pilot dies and his wife is murdered shortly after leaving Bess hell bent on getting to the bottom of things. Several other people are...more

like · see review

Aug 20, 2012 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, historical-fiction, mysteries, war

Rosalyn Landor's narration of An Impartial Witness was quite nice to listen to, and she is a talented narrator. Unfortunately, I didn't care for this Bess Crawford mystery as much as I did for A Duty to the Dead.

There were still a lot of side-effect-of-war issues discussed in this book, and I really like this series for the smart, thoughtful, and serious way in which those issues are integrated into the stories. In this mystery, though, I felt that the authors didn't do as neat of a job of makin...more

like · see review

Oct 26, 2012 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ridin-in-my-car-cd, loosely-based-on-history

I grabbed this book on CD because I was desperate to have something to listen to in my car (travel-time radio shows are horrible!). The library I was at only had a few audiobooks read by Roz Landor, whom I adore! I had to get over a brief moment of OCD-ness before I decided to get this audiobook (it's the 2nd in a series and I NEVER, EVER, EVER! read out of order). I hadn't heard of the author before but Roz Landor was all I needed to hook me in!

I was really very pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed...more

like · see review

Jan 23, 2013 Danielle added it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2013

I like a story where you feel like you're inhabiting the same world as the characters. You find it hard to draw yourself away and look forward to getting back into it as soon as you can. It's an added bonus when the book is one in a series of mysteries revolving around a set of characters that can be revisited, and in the hands of a talented author the characters grow and mature and the world takes on more details with each new instalment. Aside from the puzzle aspect, I think that is a large pa...more I like a story where you feel like you're inhabiting the same world as the characters. You find it hard to draw yourself away and look forward to getting back into it as soon as you can. It's an added bonus when the book is one in a series of mysteries revolving around a set of characters that can be revisited, and in the hands of a talented author the characters grow and mature and the world takes on more details with each new instalment. Aside from the puzzle aspect, I think that is a large part of the attraction for me of mystery novels.

If there is a heroine/sleuth to rival my favorite, Maisie Dobbs, it's Bess Crawford. There are similarities between the two, yet each is quite distinct. Mainly the two share experiences of being WWI nurses, but really the two women are different in personality, temperament and background. Bess Crawford is right in the thick of things still, as An Impartial Witness, the second book in the series takes place in the summer of 1917. In this case the impartial witness is Bess herself. Unlike Maisie who has become an inquiry agent after the end of the war, Bess tends to get snared in some sort of mischief making or other, though her natural curiosity and a sense of duty means she's compelled to see a problem (or in this case, a mystery) through to the end.

After transporting a convoy of wounded soldiers back to England Bess sees a distraught woman speaking to a soldier in a London train station. It's not an unusual scene, but this one is particularly memorable as the soldier offers the woman no comfort. He simply boards the train and doesn't look back. Once back in France Bess reads in a newspaper article that the same woman was murdered later that day, and the police are asking for any information about the woman or witnesses to the crime to come forward. It's pure chance that Bess sees the newspaper and recalls her. It's the same face she saw in a photo that one of her patients, a badly burned soldier, had carried with him back from France in that same London convey she just returned from. Already in fragile health physically, his mental health was equally precarious. He clung to the photo during his journey.

Bess is allowed to return to London to answer questions at Scotland Yard and discovers her patient committed suicide after learning of the death of his wife. Not surprising considering the seriousness of his wounds. Bess begins asking questions of her own after she meets the sister of the dead soldier at a country house party. Perhaps it's the way the murdered woman is seemingly abandoned by everyone that causes Bess to pursue the truth so tenaciously. It appears that prior to her murder the woman had been caught in an indiscretion, unknown to her husband away at war. But the indiscretion is bitterly resented by her family, and too many questions means Bess ends up in danger as well.

Bess is an interesting character, one I wouldn't mind knowing more about, and perhaps over time other aspects of her personal life will be revealed (as this is only the second book of four so far published). She was raised in India, the daughter of a well-regarded and high ranking military man. She and her mother refer to him fondly as the Colonel Sahib. Although he's now retired he is often called in by the war office to give advice. She's close to her parents and it's out of respect for her father that she became a nurse, since there was no son to become a soldier. The Colonel's former batman in India, Simon Brandon, remains close to the family and seems to have a particular affection for Bess, though it's unclear whether it's a brotherly affection or something more. Often mysteries are as much about the personal lives of the characters as the crime, but so far the Bess Crawford mysteries fall somewhere in between. Mostly mystery with just enough detail to orient the reader to the time and place but not overwhelm them.

Not being ready to leave her world, I've already picked up A Bitter Truth, and have already settled comfortably into the story. I read the first book, A Duty to the Dead, three years ago, so it took a little refreshing at first of prior events, but now I seem to have gained momentum. I don't often read series books back to back, but I think I like it--the next book feeling simply a continuation of the one last read.
(less)

like · see review

Sep 29, 2010 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's 1917 and British nurse Bess Crawford is escorting several seriously wounded soldiers from France back to hospitals in England. One of the men is a pilot who was badly burned when his plane was shot down. The pilot is clutching a picture of his wife and tells Bess that the hope of seeing her again is all that is keeping him alive. Bess later sees a picture of the same woman in the London newspaper with a request for information from the police. She was murdered the same day that her husband...more

like · see review

Sep 28, 2010 Cathy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, mysteries

I read this over a long period of time which didn't help with keeping track of characters. Bess Crawford is a British nurse serving in France during WWI. Having brought wounded soldiers back to Hampshire in Britain,she was at the train station for a short leave in London. There she sees a woman sobbing and holding the arm of an officer in a Wiltshire regiment. Her distress stopped Bess because she knew her face from the photograph that one of her patient's, pilot Lieutenant Evanson, had kept by...more

like · see review

Mar 27, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bess Crawford is a World War I battlefield nurse back in England escorting wounded soldiers when she sees a woman whom she recognizes with an unknown man in a train station. When she learns that the woman has been murdered, she does her duty and contacts Scotland Yard as a witness. However, Bess is far from impartial. She is unable to simply leave the inquiry to the police and her investigation further enmeshes her with the family and friends of the murdered woman. Like war, murder touches every...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 87 88 next »

Historical Fiction

72 users

Mystery > Historical Mystery

21 users

European Literature > British Literature

18 users

Thriller > Mystery Thriller

8 users

Mystery > Crime

7 users

War

6 users

Suspense

4 users

Mystery > Detective

4 users

Thriller

3 users

See top shelves...

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About An Impartial Witness

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: An Impartial Witness
avg rating	preview: An Impartial Witness Goodreads rating: 3.77 (1667 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10633662-an-impartial-witness?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347618790l/10633662.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10633662-an-impartial-witness?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd[/url]

An Impartial Witness (Bess Crawford #2)

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (8)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Charles Todd

Books by Charles Todd

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About An Impartial Witness