The Shattered Tree

A Bess Crawford Mystery

By: Charles Todd

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

World War I battlefield nurse Bess Crawford goes to dangerous lengths to investigate a wounded soldier’s background—and uncover his true loyalties—in this thrilling and atmospheric entry in the bestselling “vivid period mystery series” (New York Times Book Review).

At the foot of a tree shattered by shelling and gunfire, stretcher-bearers find an exhausted officer, shivering with cold and a loss of blood from several wounds. The soldier is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford’s aid station, where she stabilizes him and treats his injuries before he is sent to a rear hospital. The odd thing is, the officer isn’t British—he’s French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German.

When Bess reports the incident to Matron, her superior offers a ready explanation. The soldier is from Alsace-Lorraine, a province in the west where the tenuous border between France and Germany has continually shifted through history, most recently in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, won by the Germans. But is the wounded man Alsatian? And if he is, on which side of the war do his sympathies really lie?

Of course, Matron could be right, but Bess remains uneasy—and unconvinced. If he was a French soldier, what was he doing so far from his own lines . . . and so close to where the Germans are putting up a fierce, last-ditch fight?

When the French officer disappears in Paris, it’s up to Bess—a soldier’s daughter as well as a nurse—to find out why, even at the risk of her own life.

Everything!!!! Loved it as always!!! !!🌺🌸🙃

I love Bess-everything about her! She is the most compassionate person I know and so insightful.

History and Mystery

I like the Bess Crawford stories . . . this one wasn’t my favorite, but still good. The identity of the French soldier which Bess Crawford treated under the tree in the battlefield was a curious one. He should have been British, but he wasn’t. Like many of the reviewers, it seemed a stretch that Bess would go to so much trouble to search out who he was. But as always, I enjoyed the atmospheric details of the war, and eventually how Bess solved the mystery.

Excellent Audiobook

Wonderful story! Performance excellent, story, itself just as always with this series, right on top and the historical setting of the near end of World War I is one of my favorite times.

Solid Bess Crawford installment

It’s easy to see how this novel has won awards. In lieu of her typical approach of relying on family connections to research leads and the charming but gullible habit of spilling way too much information to everyone she meets, Bess is in a much trickier situation in this novel. She is in unfamiliar territory both geographically and intellectually and without having anyone to trust, the mystery is engaging in a fresh way. Though I missed Simon Brandon terribly, this new approach works. Subplots considering espionage and desertion are interesting while musings on the variety of injuries inevitable in this kind of warfare continues to unfold in this book. While some tired tropes are overly relied upon (endless ‘Gallic’ shrugs imbued with ‘so much’ meaning, ‘effortlessly stylish’ Frenchwomen, Bess underplaying her serious injuries and comparing her own statements to those of her patients), this novel manages to suspend disbelief and keep you interested in the fates of most characters. The flaws, unfortunately, lie in Landor’s performance. Here, again, she cannot master the American accent (though her French accents are varied and nuanced). As a result, Captain Barkley is whiney, patronizing, and interfering, when I actually think the authors intend him to be gallant, chivalrous, and solicitous. This might be one to skip on Audible and read if you are able. Having said all that, I do think the novel as a whole misses out on some character development. The vast majority of French characters are unpleasant, rude, and generally violent. I think this is due to a carelessness at the editing stage rather than stereotyping French people (racism?) but if I were French, I think I’d have been offended at the overall depiction of the temperament of my countrymen. The other cultures seem more consistently represented with diversity in characterization. Still, I’m eager to read the next installment and reading them in order has been fun!

Typical Bess Crawford

Well written/performed and excellent depiction of World war 1. Bess is as usual too good to be true. The story is interesting but to me less plausible than others in this series. Still I enjoyed