This was a bear to get into. For some unknown reason, it just didn't catch my attention. I did read it through but it took all night. England 1916, World War I is raging, Bess Crawford is serving as a nurse on the ill fated Britannia when she meets Lt. Arthur Graham, she become attached to hm against her better judgement, He entrusts her with a cryptic secret just before he suddenly dies in her care. Her guilt overwhelms her and as the ship is torpedoed, she is injured, and vows to deliver the message to his brother back home. After she recovers from those injuries, she ventures out to their estate, only to discover that Arthur's brother has no clue what the message means. Bess decides to do her own investigation into this family secret she is about to discover a murder long ago, and lies upon lies, that seem to point to the guilty person. Bess is not convinced, and she presses on, but at what consequence to the family name?

Loved this for the characters, setting and general atmosphere. I'm not that sure the mystery itself - or the solving of it - was all that solid, and if I wanted to poke at all the things I found a little hard to believe, I could spend some time doing this, but honestly, I didn't care. The book drew me in and kept me happy, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Loved the historical aspect of it; the detective aspect has room for improvement, but this opinion might also be influenced by the fact that I listened to the book amidst the chaos of moving house. Anyway, Im going to start the second book in the series tomorrow, which says something about how much I enjoyed the first one.

As I get older I often find that what matters most to me about a book is not whether the plot is air tight and the mystery totally plausible, but whether or not the author creates characters you can admire and care about. On that level, A DUTY TO THE DEAD is a classic. Bess Crawford is a beautiful, upper class English girl who volunteers to be a nurse in World War One. The daughter of an officer and very proud of her military background, Bess is fearless and calm in the terrifying shipwreck scene that begins the novel. The descriptions of the mine explosion and the frantic escape from the sinking Britannic are truly explosive, written with so much terrifying realism that it all seems to be happening in slow motion. A nightmare, yet totally real. Bess comes across as cool and resolute, yet deeply caring and utterly irresistible.Having established a totally admirable and fascinating heroine, the authors (Charles Todd is really a mother and son team writing together) introduce an even more amazing hero. Peregrine Graham is a madman who has just escaped from an asylum after fifteen years of brutal imprisonment. As a young boy he horribly murdered a pretty young servant girl -- or did he? By turns savage, brooding, and vulnerable, Peregrine Graham is a romance reader's dream. Let all my Kleypas people know: this boy could give Nick Gentry or Derek Craven a run for his money. He might even be able to go a round or two with Jamie Fraser himself!Unfortunately, this is not a romance novel. This is a cozy English mystery. And even though Bess and Peregrine have an almost sizzling physical chemistry from the word go, the mystery itself is muddled, confusing, and often unintentionally funny."Come on, Peregrine! Keep that bag over your head so no one will recognize you! It's very important that we walk down the street in plain view, and interview every elderly villager who still remembers THAT NIGHT! Look, there's old Eleanor Rigby. Let's ask her what she remembers! 'Bless you, my child, I remember it all like it was yesterday. I was picking up the rice in the church where a wedding had been, and I heard a scream. But then I heard someone say, 'blame the idiot. blame the idiot!' And that's all I remember, my dears. But look, there's Father McKenzie. He's always darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there. Perhaps he remembers more about THAT NIGHT."It's hard to believe that everyone in the village has photographic memory and total recall. And a lot of the Graham family history is hard to swallow too. There are too many Graham brothers, and you can't tell one from the other most of the time. "Now, Peregrine, while you were playing with your knife, someone must have drugged you and stolen it for just long enough to hack poor Lily to death! Now was it Harpo, the silent one? Or was it Chico, the Italian one? Or was it Groucho, the funny one? We've got to find out who it was before they send you back to the asylum! What do you mean, there ain't no sanity clause?"If you love a haunting atmosphere, a strong heroine, and a brooding hero, then this book is really a wonderful experience. But if you're looking for a mystery that is believable and detective work that is totally realistic, then A Duty To The Dead is only an average read.

I'm a big Charles Todd fan. Love the Ian Rutledge stories.Now they branched out to the story of a nurse in WWI. She is on a ship that explodes, breaks her arm or something, and gets sent home to recuperate. Prior to the explosion, she had nursed a young man who asked her to take a message home to his brother. It seems as though there was something more than a nurse-patient relationship here. But we don't really know for a while.Her father, known as Colonel Sahib for his service in India, where our heroine has grown up (and thus is a little more independent than the young ladies growing up in England), encourages her to do her duty.She finds some very strange goings on in this household. There was a son from an earlier marriage and the patient had two brothers. His mother and her brother complete the household. It appears that the first son was accused of a heinous murder when he was 14 and was sent to an asylum. When Bess comes in the picture, as a nurse, she volunteers to help the doctor with a shell-shocked patient, she does have some experience with that, and when the elder son is returned home with pnuemonia, she nurses him also. She finds something not right with the picture, and, being our intrepid heroine, feels herself impelled to find out whether Peregrine could in fact have been the murderer ... or, was the wrong brother being punished.I found it quite enjoyable. I've heard the second book in the series isn't as good, but I will try it anyway.