An Unmarked Grave

by Charles Todd

This is the fourth Bess Crawford Mystery about a young woman who is working as a nurse during WWI.

Bess is at a field station near the front in France.  Many wounded are being treated but also the infamous flu is also decimating the soldiers and the staff.  Bess is summoned to a storage area where the dead are being held until they can be transported for burial.  The young man who supervises this area points out that one of the bodies has not died of wounds nor of the flu but appears to have a broken neck. 

Bess recognizes him as a young man, an officer, she knew and sets off to tell the Matron about this suspicious death. However, before she can do so she falls seriously ill to the flu and ends up being returned to England to recuperate.  She thinks she might have dreamed of the death but then hears that the young man who summoned her was found hanged.  It is assumed he committed suicide.

Bess confides in her father and the family friend Simon and they try to investigate from their end (as intelligence officers).  She returns to France to try to find out more but before she can do so she is attacked.  The camp thinks all women are in danger.  Her father arranges to have a young American who had joined the Canadian army come to her location and be an unofficial guard for her.  Suddenly she receives orders to go to a new medical location.  She travels to another city awaiting the transfer vehicle but it never arrives.  When she reports to a nursing station the head nurse accuses her of partying on the town and missing her transport.  She prepares paperwork to return her to England in disgrace.

Bess meets the families of the two dead men and it confirms her feeling that the one man did not commit suicide.  She also meets the family of the other man but cannot figure out who would want to murder him.  Could it be because he refused to share anything from the family estate because she tran away with an actor?  Bess learns that a letter was sent to the Officer's wife by an Official, who does not appear to exist.   Bess is shocked to learn that the nurse who so unceremoniously returned her to England has also died/been murdered in mysterious circumstances.

Bess returns to England and is attacked on the ship by a man in a British uniform.

It turns out that the murderer is really out to get revenge on Bess and her family because her father did not promote him.

This was by far the best of the books.  The others have been okay.  This was kept my interest more, perhaps because the crime actually involved the main character.
Bess