As the Great War drags on with all its misery in the autumn of 1918, Nursing Sister Bess Crawford is glad to have made a safe passage across to Dover from France. She is exhausted but glad they had not lost any of the severely injured soldiers on the way over. With a few days off, Bess is now anxious to get to London from Canterbury to visit her family, but all the trains are full, largely with military transfers and wounded soldiers. To fill her waiting time for the next train, Bess decides to visit the Cathedral when she is spotted by a former patient, Major Mark Aston.

Aston is very happy to see Bess and knowing his mother would appreciate a visit with her as they had previously met in France when he was wounded. He quickly invites her to their family home in the nearby village of Cranbourne on the Swale. On the way, Aston tells Bess about the horrific explosion and fire over two years earlier that caused over 100 deaths in the family gunpowder factory. After sabotage was ruled out by the army, it was deemed a tragic accident that marred a safety record of over a century. Yet despite that, the mood in the village had changed recently, and ugly and increasingly vicious incidents are happening. Philip Aston, Mark's father, is taken into custody by the unsympathetic local police. Why has this happened? Why do the villagers think he is guilty? Where are his friends and those who know him? Is he innocent or not?

A PATTERN OF LIES is the seventh book in the Bess Crawford Mystery Series written by Charles Todd, a best-selling team of Charles Todd and his mother Caroline Todd. It is an awesome series about a very competent and brave woman who is willing to do what she can to help the soldiers under her care and to put her intelligent mind to helping her friends grapple with problems or to help solve a mystery. The Todd team have nicely crafted this latest mystery that is based on a real event concerning the 1916 Oare Gunpowder explosion in Kent. The Todd team are well known for their ability to bring the WWI times into life in their books and A PATTERN OF LIES is no exception. It realistically describes wartime conditions and shortages in England as well as life on the front in France for the soldiers, the wounded, the nursing sisters, and medical teams.

The story development in A PATTERN OF LIES is strong and really highlights how easily sown lies can influence people, and the power that a mob mentality can have as it takes a hold over the truth. This latest addition by Todd is definitely darker than earlier books but still a very good read. I have to admit my favourite scenes are where Bess calls on her authority (real or otherwise) as a Nursing Sister with the Queen Alexander Imperial Nursing Services to get access to places or family members to obtain much needed and often hidden information to help puzzle things out.

Todd's many fans will certainly appreciate this continuation of life and events with Bess. While A PATTERN OF LIES can easily be read as a standalone mystery, having read a few other books in the series will certainly add to the richness of the story as characters from the previous books reappear, but with brief background descriptions.

In A PATTERN OF LIES there is a stronger focus on setting the mystery and its impact than on Bess as a character and a heroine. Given that, I hope as the war finally ends, future books might have a stronger focus on Bess's development as a character as I really like her spunk and wit. Meanwhile, if you love good historical fiction or British-based mysteries, you will find much of interest in A PATTERN OF LIES. Do check it out for yourself.

Book Summary

A horrific explosion at a gunpowder mill sends Bess Crawford to war-torn France to keep a deadly pattern of lies from leading to more deaths, in this compelling and atmospheric mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of A Question of Honor and An Unwilling Accomplice.

An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men. It’s called an appalling tragedy—until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. While visiting the Ashton family, Bess Crawford finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility that doesn’t stop with Philip Ashton’s arrest. Indeed, someone is out for blood, and the household is all but under siege.

The only known witness to the tragedy is now at the Front in France. Bess is asked to find him. When she does, he refuses to tell her anything that will help the Ashtons. Realizing that he believes the tissue of lies that has nearly destroyed a family, Bess must convince him to tell her what really happened that terrible Sunday morning. But now someone else is also searching for this man.

To end the vicious persecution of the Ashtons, Bess must risk her own life to protect her reluctant witness from a clever killer intent on preventing either of them from ever reaching England.