“A stunner, exquisitely plotted and characterized, with Todd’s trademark meticulous backdrop of World War I-era England.”—Strand Magazine

The Great War is still raging when Francesca Hatton’s adored grandfather dies on the family estate in England’s isolated Exe Valley. Among his effects, Francesca is stunned to find an unsigned letter cursing the Hattons and their descendants. Then a stranger...

At an aid station in France in October 1918, Bess Crawford, a nurse, encounters an injured, unidentified French lieutenant, who yells in fluent German after being attacked by a fellow patient. Though Bess's matron suggests that the Frenchman is from German-speaking Alsace-Lorraine, Bess isn't so sure. Two weeks later, Bess is shot while in the trenches and is sent to Paris to recuperate, and finds the perfect opportunity to pursue the matter, with...

It's 1920. Three men are dead, all garroted, all war veterans. When a piece of evidence, kept from the public, suggests a much stronger link between the victims and the unknown, it's up to World War I battered survivor, Scotland Yard Detective Ian Rutledge to find the killer

"Todd has written a first novel that speaks out, urgently and compassionately, for a long-dead generation....A meticulously wrought puzzle."
—New York Times Book Review

"An intricately plotted mystery. With this remarkable debut, Charles Todd breaks new ground in the historical crime novel."
—Peter Lovesey, author of The Circle

"You're going to love Todd."
—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

The

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A murder leads World War I nurse Bess Crawford into the clutches of a wily killer

An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible--but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his superior at Scotland Yard. Alan Barrington, who has evaded capture for ten years, is the suspect in an appalling murder during Black Ascot, the famous 1910 royal horserace honoring the late King Edward VII. His disappearance began a manhunt that consumed Britain for a decade. Now it appears that Barrington has returned to England,...

Troubled Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge wrestles with a startling and dangerous case that reaches far into the past when a false confession from a man who is not who he claims to be leads to a brutal murder

The critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of the Ian Rutledge mystery series, Charles Todd once again spotlights World War I nurse Bess Crawford in An Unmarked Grave. Gripping, powerful, and evocative, this superb mystery masterwork unfolds during the deadly Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, as Bess discovers the body of a murdered British officer among the many dead and sets out to unmask a craven killer.