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    A Cruel Deception: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    A Cruel Deception: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    A Cruel Deception: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Cruel Deception: A Bess Crawford Mystery

    Written by Charles Todd

    Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In the aftermath of World War I, nurse Bess Crawford attempts to save a troubled former soldier from a mysterious killer in this eleventh book in the beloved Bess Crawford mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd.

    The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared.

    Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war’s wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s.

    Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping.  When she does locate Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who has walked away from his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. When she confronts him with the dangers of using laudanum, he tells her that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can’t confide in Bess—because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing—still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help. But where to begin on her own?

    What is driving this man to a despair so profound it can only end with death? The war? Something that happened in Paris? To prevent a tragedy, she must get at the truth as quickly as possible—which means putting herself between Lieutenant Minton and whatever is destroying him. Or is it whoever?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 22, 2019
    ISBN9780062960337
    Author

    Charles Todd

    Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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    Reviews for A Cruel Deception

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Title: A Cruel Deception (Bess Crawford Mysteries #11)Author: Charles ToddPages: 320Year: 2019Publisher: William MorrowMy rating is 5 out of 5 stars.Bess Crawford receives a request from the matron of her unit to travel to Paris to check up on her son, Lieutenant Milton, who has not been heard from in some weeks. While the request is unusual due to the personal nature, Bess feels as if it is more like an order and complies. First she must locate the wayward soldier. When she does, she discovers he wants nothing more to do with the military and refuses to discuss his dramatic change in attitude. Prior to this trip, he was fully engaged in his military career and wanted to continue his service.As Bess tries to get him to reveal his reasoning, she has to keep the fact that he is basically AWOL from everyone, including his mother and fellow soldiers. There is another soldier who appears to be following Bess wherever she goes. She spots him numerous times but isn’t sure whether he is a threat to her or not as he doesn’t approach her. Once she discovers the reason for the lieutenant’s reticence about why he has gone AWOL, she then must track down the responsible party, which could prove deadly for the lieutenant and Bess.Once again the mother and son team that is Charles Todd have given readers another novel that challenges readers to use their minds. There are no explosions, hostage situations, or gun fights just the presentation of a mystery for readers to solve. Bess travels again and again to a few locations, probing and searching to find any scrap of information she can to aid in her efforts to uncover the truth. I am anxious to see what Bess will do with her life as the war is now over and her time of service in Queen Alexandra’s as a nurse comes to a close. I hope to see a bit of romance for her. She is such a strong, staunch character. She is no-nonsense but has compassion for the wounded in her care. I thoroughly enjoyed this latest from the pen of Charles Todd and look forward to book twelve in the series.Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility.
    • 4/5
      Many readers may have expected Charles Todd's Bess Crawford series to end when World War I ended, but this writing team has continued Bess's adventures in order to create a portrait that illuminates the cost of war on human lives—the lingering pain and horror that no armistice or peace treaty can assuage. Bess has continued her nursing, working with severely wounded soldiers, but in A Cruel Deception, she finds herself thinking about what else she might want to do with her life. She also finds herself thinking about Simon Brandon who seems to be on holiday in Scotland-- and a mysterious woman might be involved. I imagine that I'm not the only fan of this series who's wanted Bess to start thinking more seriously about Simon. Who knows? We may be getting our wish. Another thing that Charles Todd deals with so well in this series is how Bess has gotten used to living her own life and making her own decisions without deferring to her family. This is something many women in this time period found themselves doing for the first time, and they liked it. This series often deals with various issues wounded soldiers had to face, and in A Cruel Deception, it's the anguish of mental trauma, that most difficult affliction for most people to understand or to even begin to deal with. Here, what we now call PTSD is treated with sensitivity and understanding as Bess tries to find out why someone is attacking both Minton and herself, as well as learning what happened to Minton that makes him want to destroy himself. It's another tale well told, and I'm looking forward to the next time I meet Bess.
    • 3/5
      I didn't realize that this was #11 in the series until I was left with only this one book to read! It was good but I had to stretch my imagination a few times - Bess was having revelations out of the blue, but beyond that, it was good (enough).
    • 2/5
      Most of the time I enjoy reading mysteries by the mother/son team of Charles Todd, but this time, the writing hedged on dreariness. Maybe the prior two mysteries I have read displayed better writing and story-telling that this novel shrunk in comparison. WWI has ended and Bess has been given the duty to find Matron’s son in Paris and relay information concerning him to his mother. Bess finds Lieutenant Lawrence Minton addicted to opiates and suffering from guilt-ridden nightmares. Lawrence escapes from Bess’s care, only to suffer a brutal beating at the hands of a mysterious man. Bess bravely faces many hazards in her quest to find and assist Lawrence and this journey drones on and on for too long. Of course, the reader knows that Bess will prevail in her duties and will seek Simon.
    • 4/5
      The Todds continue to mine their mother lode of WW1 angst with another good Bess Crawford story. Helping a colleague, Bess goes to France to locate her missing son a surviving officer from The Great War. Part nurse and part detective, she needs both skillsets to sort them out; resulting in an interesting, if violent, ending.
    • 3/5
      Again, interesting and intriguing characters, but Bess is again obsessive as she tries to discover what is haunting an ex- soldier set to work on the Armistice of November. The resolution is out of the blue and reveals other obsessive. Hope the plot in the next one is better although I’ll read it just for the feeling of time and place.
    • 5/5
      Title: A Cruel Deception (Bess Crawford Mysteries #11)Author: Charles ToddPages: 320Year: 2019Publisher: William MorrowMy rating is 5 out of 5 stars.Bess Crawford receives a request from the matron of her unit to travel to Paris to check up on her son, Lieutenant Milton, who has not been heard from in some weeks. While the request is unusual due to the personal nature, Bess feels as if it is more like an order and complies. First she must locate the wayward soldier. When she does, she discovers he wants nothing more to do with the military and refuses to discuss his dramatic change in attitude. Prior to this trip, he was fully engaged in his military career and wanted to continue his service.As Bess tries to get him to reveal his reasoning, she has to keep the fact that he is basically AWOL from everyone, including his mother and fellow soldiers. There is another soldier who appears to be following Bess wherever she goes. She spots him numerous times but isn’t sure whether he is a threat to her or not as he doesn’t approach her. Once she discovers the reason for the lieutenant’s reticence about why he has gone AWOL, she then must track down the responsible party, which could prove deadly for the lieutenant and Bess.Once again the mother and son team that is Charles Todd have given readers another novel that challenges readers to use their minds. There are no explosions, hostage situations, or gun fights just the presentation of a mystery for readers to solve. Bess travels again and again to a few locations, probing and searching to find any scrap of information she can to aid in her efforts to uncover the truth. I am anxious to see what Bess will do with her life as the war is now over and her time of service in Queen Alexandra’s as a nurse comes to a close. I hope to see a bit of romance for her. She is such a strong, staunch character. She is no-nonsense but has compassion for the wounded in her care. I thoroughly enjoyed this latest from the pen of Charles Todd and look forward to book twelve in the series.Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility.
    • 4/5
      Bess Crawford is sent to Paris by Matron to find her son, Lawrence, and report back to her regarding his whereabouts and condition. As a wounded army captain, he had volunteered to take part in the peace talks but is now missing. Bess takes on the challenge and finds him staying with a friend, a young woman whose family he had helped during the war. But he is suffering from a severe laudanum addiction and makes it clear that he resents both Bess' and his mother's interference. Bess decides not to report back but to stay and try to help despite his disinterest in any aid she can give. She begins to realize that there is more happening than just an addiction especially after a murder attempt is made on him. Not only that but she keeps running into the same man when she is out and, although he seems friendly, she suspects that the danger is spreading and Lawrence isn't the only one being threatened.I've been a fan of Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge series for a while but A Cruel Deception is the first of their Bess Crawford mysteries I have read. Like the other series, this is set in WWI era and it is just as engrossing. Bess is a nurse who had worked on the frontlines and makes for a very strong protagonist. Also like the Ian Rutledge series, it is more about the investigation than the action which is limited and tends to take place off the page. I did feel the villain seemed a bit contrived but, overall, I quite enjoyed this book and wouldn't hesitate to read others in the series.Thanks to Edelweiss+ and William Morrow for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
    • 4/5
      This was a very sad and difficult read. Bess is asked by her supervisor to go to Paris and locate her son a wounded army captain who is missing from peace talks and to report back on his condition. Bess does locate him staying with a friend outside of Paris but the captain is suffering from severe PTSD and a laudanum addiction. There were many threats and lots of danger. It seemed out of character that Bess’s father couldn’t find time to see his daughter and I didn’t like that Simon wasn’t in this book. Is he injured too, like the captain?
    • 5/5
      I was delighted to win a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I have read and enjoyed the entire Bess Crawford series, and this one was a great addition. It's wonderful that the authors can sustain the quality of the series through 11 books and leave the readers wanting more. I flew through the book within 24 hours of receiving it. It was suspenseful and very atmospheric, depicting life in the aftermath of WWI. I highly recommend this book.