A Bitter Truth: A Bess Crawford Mystery by Charles Todd

                   Oh, my dear Simon Brandon.  You’re so close, so very close.  Don’t lose her!

                Sigh.  A Bitter Truth has been the most frustrating Bess Crawford mystery so far.  It’s also the one I have liked the least.  In fact, if this book was not part of the Bess Crawford mystery series I would have probably returned it to the library.  Fortunately, it is part of the series and in this installment Simon is heavily featured.  I am a tad partial to Sergeant-Major Simon Brandon, so the more he’s in these books the better.

                World War I nurse Bess Crawford is on leave for Christmas when she finds an abused woman on her doorstep.  The woman is Lydia Ellis and at first she is reluctant to tell Bess her story, but eventually the truth comes out.  Lydia has run away from home after being struck by her husband.  Roger Ellis is on leave from the military because of his brother’s death and he is under a lot of stress.  At least that’s how Lydia justifies what happened.  Roger has never hit Lydia before and after a day or two she starts to think about going home.  Bess is not so sure about this.  No matter how much stress Roger is under he should not be hitting his wife.  Bess does not trust the situation Lydia will be walking into, and when Lydia asks Bess to accompany her, Bess agrees.  She suspects that not only will the home situation be a problem for Lydia, but that there might be something more wrong with Lydia’s physical being than just a bruised face.

                When Bess and Lydia reach Lydia’s home of Vixen Hill, Bess finds a family not only in mourning for a son they just lost, but also for a daughter that died long ago.  Roger’s sister Juliana died as a young child but it still haunts the family every day.  It has even led Roger and his siblings to not have children because they do not want to go through the possible despair of losing a child.

                After going to a doctor, it is confirmed that along with Lydia’s facial injuries she also has a concussion from a fall she took on the stairs as she ran away from Roger.  Bess agrees to stay at Vixen Hill for a few days until she is sure Lydia has recovered, but when one of the other guests is murdered, Bess is forced to stay until her name is cleared.  Eventually it is and Bess is able to return home for Christmas.  Unfortunately her involvement in the ordeal is not over.  Lydia has pleaded with Bess to find an orphaned girl living in France.  Bess doesn’t know if she will be able to do it, but she promises she will try when she has the time.  Then another body turns up near Vixen Hill and Bess is called back from France for questioning.  With the murders of two men unsolved, and a third adding even more confusion, it seems as though Bess may never be free to go back to life as normal.

                The reason I had a hard time with this book is because I didn’t like the other characters.  Lydia drove me crazy with her tantrums and manipulations.  Roger kept storming around and taking out his anger on people who had done nothing to him.  He especially liked to yell at Bess for every unfortunate happening in his life.  Roger’s mother wasn’t bad.  She tried to keep everyone together as best she could.  Gran, Roger’s grandmother, was a pain.  Nothing made her happy and if something was different from when she was growing up it was automatically wrong.  According to her it was horrible that Bess was a nurse.  Women of her social status were not supposed to do such things.  Gran was definitely a woman behind on the times.

                A few of the side characters were okay.  I especially liked the maid, Daisy.  Other than that, not many characters were ones I would want to read about.  They were not pleasant. 

                There was one that was pleasant; however I still did not like him. Sergeant Larimore is a wounded Australian soldier Bess meets in France. He plays a big part in the search for the orphaned girl, and it looks like he may turn into a love interest for Bess. Hence my tirade at the start of this post. Sgt. Larimore may seem like he is fun and helpful, but he is far too slick for my taste. Which is why I want Simon to hurry up. I don’t want to see Bess with someone else, but if Simon takes any more time to declare his feelings she just might. If Bess does end up with another man when she belongs with Simon, I think it would drive me crazy. It certainly did when Murdoch Mysteries had a similar situation. I kept looking ahead to see if Murdoch and Dr. Ogden got together because I did not have the patience to deal with their dancing. Clearly they loved each other but it kept getting messed up for one reason or another. This is not what I want to happen to Bess and Simon. So, Simon, hurry up and tell Bess your feelings. Bess, wake up and realize you feel the same. Then, when the war is over and everyone has returned home, you can have a happy ending.