A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery

WWI has finally ended in Mary Higgins Clark Award–winner Todd’s memorable 10th mystery featuring British nurse Bess Crawford (after 2017’s A Casualty of War). Despite the conclusion of the fighting, Bess still has plenty of soldiers to tend to at a hospital in France—in particular, a group of Welsh soldiers, whose serious injuries make their future employment doubtful. When she’s reassigned to a clinic back in England, Bess is reunited with the Welshmen, only to find several of them suicidal. Following their discharge, their leader, Capt. Hugh Williams, writes to inform her that one of the privates took his own life, and to ask for help to avert future suicides. She uses some leave to seek Williams out, ending up in a desolate and isolated town on the Welsh coast, where he’s suspected of his own brother’s murder. His warning that it’s not safe for Bess to remain there proves prescient. The atmosphere of the claustrophobic community Bess is trapped in is palpable as Todd (the mother-and-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd) expertly ratchets up the suspense. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (Sept.)