The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his footsteps and signs up to go overseas as a nurse during the Great War, helping to deal with the many wounded. There, serving on a hospital ship, she makes a promise to a dying young lieutenant to take a message to his brother, Jonathan Graham: "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right." Later, when her ship is sunk by a mine and she's sidelined...

A simple theft leads to unforeseen tragedy in this story from the New York Times–bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries.
 
In a quaint antiquarian bookshop in the Midlands of England, a woman is captivated by a rare gilt-edged devotional nestled within an exquisite and equally tempting box. Her desire to pilfer it overcomes her scruples, and her guilt and terror at doing something so audacious,...

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,...

"A man is murdered at a society wedding held at Ely Cathedral, and the local police are mystified. In the end, they send for Scotland Yard, but not before another man is killed. This time, there's a witness, but her description of the killer is so strange that no one believes her. So it's Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge's task to find out who the murderer is and why he has set out on this killing spree, because there is another death, and the...

Three men have been murdered in a Sussex village, and Scotland Yard has been called in. It's a baffling case. The victims are soldiers who survived the horrors of the Great War only to meet a ghastly end in the quiet English countryside two years later. Each had been garroted, with small ID disks left in their mouths. But even Scotland Yard's presence doesn't deter this vicious and clever killer. Shortly after Inspector Ian Rutledge arrives, a fourth...

World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford matches wits with a devious killer in this exciting and suspenseful adventure from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd In the spring of 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic spreads, killing millions of soldiers and civilians across the globe. Overwhelmed by the constant flow of wounded soldiers coming from the French front, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford must now contend with hundreds of influenza...

Late on a spring night in 1920, five boys cross the Yorkshire dales to the ruins of Fountains Abbey, intent on raising the Devil. Instead, they stumble over the Devil himself, sitting there watching them. Terrified, they run for their lives, leaving behind a book on alchemy stolen from their schoolmaster. The next morning, a body is discovered in the cloisters of the abbey--a man swathed in a hooded cloak and wearing a gas mask. Scotland Yard dispatches

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Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year's Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he'd seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend's house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable...

The fighting has ended, the Armistice signed, but the war has left wounds that are still agonizingly raw. Battlefield Nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees, and the Welsh patients worry her. She does her best to help them, but it's clear that they have nothing to go home to, in a valley where only the fit can work in the coal pits. When they are released, she fears that peace will do what war couldn't-take their lives. Their...

Charles Todd brings his classic mystery series to a new level of intensity and intrigue. The year is 1919, and Ian Rutledge is a fragile yet courageous former soldier searching for his place in a post-war world. Now a Scotland Yard detective, Rutledge is called upon to probe a murder in the small Norfolk town of Osterley- but he soon discovers that the crime may be connected to one of the greatest disasters of all time.