Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery
A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery
A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery
Audiobook10 hours

A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

Written by Charles Todd

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

In the latest mystery from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd, World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford investigates an old murder that occurred during her childhood in India, and begins a search for the truth that will transform her and leave her pondering a troubling question: How can facts lie?

In 1908, when a young Bess Crawford lived in India, an unforgettable incident darkened the otherwise happy time. Her father's regiment discovered it had a murderer in its ranks, an officer who killed five people yet was never brought to trial.

A decade later, tending to the wounded on the battlefields of France during World War I, Bess learns from a dying man that the alleged murderer, Lieutenant Wade, is alive and serving at the Front. According to reliable reports, he'd died years before, so how did Wade escape India? What drove a good man to murder in cold blood? Bess uses her leave to investigate. But when she stumbles on the horrific truth, she is shaken to her very core. The facts reveal a reality that could have been her own fate.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateAug 27, 2013
ISBN9780062283757
Author

Charles Todd

Charles and Caroline Todd are a mother-and-son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States. Together, they have written nearly thirty mysteries, including the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford series.

More audiobooks from Charles Todd

Related to A Question of Honor

Titles in the series (8)

View More

Related audiobooks

Mystery For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for A Question of Honor

Rating: 3.815340948863637 out of 5 stars
4/5

176 ratings13 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Much better than the last couple novels in the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Question of Honor
    4 Stars

    WWI nurse, Bess Crawford, becomes involved in a decade old murder investigation when, moments before his death, an Indian Subedar informs her that he has seen a killer from the past. During her childhood in India, an officer from her father's regiment was accused of murdering five people, but disappeared before he could be brought to trial. This incident left a profound mark on the Colonel and his men for whom honor and duty are paramount. Now Bess has an opportunity to look into the case and discovers that all is not as it seems and perhaps the officer is innocent after all.

    Despite the numerous coincidences that move the plot forward and enable Bess to solve the case, this is still a significant improvement on the previous book. The mystery is interesting with well-fleshed out suspects, a logical motive and an appropriate perpetrator.

    The information on the fostering of English children born in India is very compelling and demonstrates that little about human nature has changed over time. Moreover, the descriptions of the conditions in the trenches and the injuries sustained by the soldiers add an excellent sense of realism to the narrative and immerse the reader into the wartime situation. 

    The one minor issue with the book is that the romance between Bess and Simon is taking too long to get going. It is time to shape up or ship out!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    2013, Harper Audio, Read by Rosalyn LandorPublisher’s Summary: adapted from Audible.comBess Crawford enjoyed a wondrous childhood in India, but an unforgettable incident darkened that happy time. In 1908, Colonel Crawford's regiment discovered that it had a murderer in its ranks, an officer who killed five people in India and England yet was never brought to trial. In the eyes of many of these soldiers, men defined by honor and duty, the crime was a stain on the regiment's reputation and on the good name of Bess' father, the Colonel Sahib, who had trained the killer.A decade later, tending to the wounded on the battlefields of France during World War I, Bess learns from a dying Indian sergeant that the supposed murderer, Lieutenant Wade, is alive – and serving at the Front. Wanting answers, she uses her leave to investigate … but when Bess stumbles on the horrific truth, something that even the famous writer Rudyard Kipling had kept secret all his life, she is shaken to her very core. The facts will damn Wade even as they reveal a brutal reality, a reality that could have been her own fate.My Review:Another solid read in the Bess Crawford series. As the truth unfolds, a brutal reality is revealed – one that might have been Bess’ own. In the early 1900s, most English servicemen stationed in India left children behind to be reared and kept safe in their homeland. But the reality was that not all foster couples fostered children for good will – some “cared” for the children strictly for money. At the center of A Question of Honor is a group of damaged children who had been fostered by one such family – among them Lieutenant Wade. The children’s pain has followed them into adulthood – with heartbreaking consequences.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Honor of the Regiment is always a powerful incentive but just as frequently a difficult burden. As WW 1 grinds glacier like towards its ultimate and ignoble armistice; generals are still killing and maiming the young men of Europe at a horrific rate.Bess seeks to solve some quite old mysteries that occurred in the far distant and close by parts of the British Empire. Disparate crimes seem to be connected but are they really? Help from the RSM, the Mrs. and Sahib Colonel assist her greatly in resolving these far-flung and long ago crimes.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    At one stage reading the book, it was threatening to be one of the worst ones I've come across. It was veering between one and two stars. I said to myself, give me a reason and I'll do it. Well, I did rate it 1 star, and as a result, I'm swearing off books by Charles Todd. The warning signs were there when at every step of the inquiry conducted by the heroine, Bess Crawford, there was a plethora of deaths set in the past. Now, untimely deaths that haunt the present from their grave is a device that the authors have used to good effect in previous books. But here it was literally overkill. I couldn't shake off the reaction how maudlin and manipulative the entire business was. Matters weren't helped when the voices narrating the details of the deaths weren't individualistic and sharply personal and intimately unique. These witnesses had no voice of their own. Then there's the betrayed promise of the plot itself. To resume, an army officer is accused of two series of murders. One set, three people in England, then, having sailed to India, there was the murder case of the officer's own parents. The latter tragedy occurred just after the said officer had alighted in India. Long story short, the two sets of murders were unrelated, and the second double murders had nothing to do with the other, was perpetuated for obscure reasons, WAS a coincidence of unbelievable proportions, and was solved within the confines of a postscript tagged on at the end of the book. It is dangerous to think too much of what to read and what not to. Poorly rated books can be a success with any reader. But then you think of authors who have written poor books and have disappointed you twice or thrice. While I won't automatically go for every flavor of the month, I have reached the stage where I can accept that my past go to authors cannot guarantee a good read. That renders a sizable chunk of my books redundant. But this selection problem is a pleasant headache. And I'm going to keep trying to use my judgment and experience to find the next gem. Hopefully sooner.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    have read every entry in this series and I do love them all but this one took a little more time for me to get through it. In this novel an incident from the past resurfaces and leads to a mystery Bess is determined to solve. As some other reviewers correctly pointed out, this novel perhaps relies a bit too much on coincidences to propel the story along. For instance Bess is in the middle of a battle in France and yet she keeps running into people integral to the story. A certain person in fact who managed to elude the entire English army in India but not our heroine. While we are on the topic of things I would like to fix, I would also like to see Bess develop a love interest, in particular Simon Brandon. A war is going on. It is not believable that they would not have hooked up by now, unless he is gay. If he is please just say so and I will move on. People are dying all around them, it is not realistic that people are not hooking up in the face of death. To illustrate my point I offer up two other series that remind me of this one, Maggie Hope and Maisie Dobbs. Both women are just as smart and sleuth minded as Bess Crawford but their authors develop their personal sides as well as provide an intriguing mystery. Maise in particular has changed so much from the first novel. I don't always like her choices but at least she's making them. I can't really say what Bess is like personally outside of being nosy and a good nurse. It may seem like I am being highly critical but it's just because I really do like the series so much. It's very well written and the stories the authors put forth are intriguing. I am not ready to give up yet but the series would benefit from some personal progression in the next book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bess spent her childhood in colonial India where her father was a British colonial. His tenure this was darkened when one of his men was suspected of killing three peopke in England as wekk as his parents in India. The soldier escaped into Afganistan and is preseumed dead, but now Bess thinks she's seen him fighting on the western front. Is it Lieutenant Wade and did he commit the horrible crimes?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I just finished "A Question of Honor" by Charles Todd. The prologue sets the stage among British imperial forces in India in 1908, then shifts to WW I England to play out the hand dealt ten years before.The children of officers serving in India were often sent home to England for a proper education and a safer environment. This story turns upon the way some of these children were treated as boarders in the homes of 'good' English families.Bess Crawford's father was the Colonel Sahib of a lieutenant charged with the murders of his former host family and of his own family. The Colonel is criticized for letting the officer escape-- the man's murderous behavior and escape reflect badly upon the honor of his Regiment. Ten years later, when Bess discovers that the man is still alive and serving in the British Army as an enlisted man fighting in France, she sets out to get answers to how and why a good man could have gone so wrong.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Charles Todd, the mother and son writing team, create a well-written novel. The main emphasis of this novel dwells on WWI and the life of English children living in England, while the parents are stationed in India. The treatment and hardships of those children enlightens me to an unfamiliar aspect of life. Bess Crawford and the other nurses forsake a life of ease to handle the mass of wounded soldiers. The description of the long hours of work and unhealthy conditions of many of the aid stations leaves me to wonder that any man could survive. Bess stops at nothing to defend a soldier accused of murder in trying to uphold the honor of her father's regiment. Romance makes no appearance in A Question of Honor, a very small disappointment.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It is time to move Bess on. The war should be over, we are in the 5th book in this series. We have learned a great deal about WW1 and the nursing profession. We have dealt with influenza twice. Bess needs a lift and a life. Simon needs to make his move. If the series is to continue the Todd's need to think of what Bess might do after the war. I like the Rutledge series very much and it has developed in the course of the series. I do not get bored reading those books. I had to push myself through to the end of this latest Bess Crawford book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first became acquainted with the mother-son writing team known as Charles Todd through their series featuring World War I veteran (and victim of shell shock), Inspector Ian Rutledge. Although that series is excellent, after awhile Rutledge's depression and angst became wearing. In the Bess Crawford series we get to see the horrors of World War I through the eyes of a nurse at the front lines-- someone risking her own life daily in an attempt to save men like Ian Rutledge. This series has continued to get better with each book, and A Question of Honor is the best one yet.In previous books we've learned bits and pieces about Bess's childhood in India where her father was stationed. Now we get to learn even more with this unsolved murder case from 1908 when she was a teenager. I'm fairly well versed in the topic of nurses at the front during World War I (one book I can't recommend highly enough is Lyn Macdonald's The Roses of No Man's Land), and sometimes I have to forcibly keep my disbelief under tight wraps when reading about this character's travels during war time. I don't think any other nurse throughout the history of mankind could rack up more frequent flier miles than Bess. She always seems to be getting leave or hopping aboard a hospital ship to transport the wounded across the Channel to various hospitals in England. All the other nurses must be green with envy!That said and out of my system, the mystery in A Question of Honor is the best yet-- and there's the added bonus of Bess's mother having a role in solving it. This series is populated with several secondary characters that I'd love to learn more about. Since Mrs. Crawford steps up to the plate in this book, I'm hoping this paves the way in future books for more to be divulged about Colonel Crawford and Simon.The plot is a complicated one that must unfold slowly, due in part to so many people denying knowledge of certain events and places because of their traumatic childhoods. In Jacqueline Winspear's Leaving Everything Most Loved, the reader learns about Indian nannies and governesses who were taken to England and then abandoned when the children they were caring for grew up and went to school. In A Question of Honor, we learn what could happen to children whose parents, stationed in India, sent them to England for schooling and to shield them from tropical diseases. Once again, secrets prove deadly, and this latest Bess Crawford mystery proves to be an engrossing read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A Question of Honor is the 5th book in the Bess Crawford mysteries. In my opinion it is the best one so far. The Charles Todd duo can write an excellent English cozy mystery. I was very happy to get this one and enjoyed it from beginning to end. Definitely worth the read.This one starts by going back into the past about a decade earlier and half a world away in India. Bess is a girl blooming into a young woman when a letter arrives for an officer's family. It was not bearing good news. As a matter of fact it was about the worst news parents could receive. Their youngest daughter caught a terrible illness shortly after arriving in England and failed to recover. The father couldn’t swing leave, so another officer from the unit agreed to escort her. When the officer returned he fell back into his routine, that is, until the military police arrived at the outpost. He rode off to look for his ‘compass’ and never returned. Eventually the MP’s reported seeing a body at the bottom of a ravine they believed to be the missing man. Jump forward ten years, into the middle of the Great War.At one of the aid stations Bess was working, an Indian speaking only Pushtu showed up grievously wounded, with a message he felt compelled to pass on. He’d seen the Lieutenant who was supposed to be dead all those years ago fighting on the lines.Bess was more than willing to let it pass a the ramblings of a death clouded mind, until she spotted a man she would swear was him. That was the start of an investigation into the mystery that happened all those years ago and a question of how a perfect gentleman could do something so out of character as the brutal killings he was accused of.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This latest addition to the Bess Crawford canon is truly excellent and so often heart-breaking. The mystery here is secondary in my opinion to the deeper truths it reveals about pre-war Anglo-Indian life. It is impossible not to connect to Bess as a character and the grim realities of war are never sugarcoated in this series. The sad story that unfolds of the abuse of children send halfway around the world supposedly to lead a better life is just heart-wrenching. Once I started reading this book, I just couldn't put it down. That said, this is no casual summer beach read.