English homefront provides no rest for heroine

A DUTY TO THE DEAD. By Charles Todd. Morrow. 329 pages. $24.99.

Why tinker with success? To have more success, if you're Charles Todd.

Charles, the intriguingly mysterious mother-son writing team, has done exceedingly well with a series of mystery novels starring Inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran who grapples with the lasting effects World War I had on him personally even as he investigates crimes in an England that has been forever changed. Through 11 books, the Inspector Rutledge series has grown better and more popular. Rutledge -- with Hamish, a young Scot whom he had to execute on the battlefield, always in his head -- would seem to have plenty of years ahead to pursue justice and ponder the sometimes cruel turns that life takes.

So Charles Todd fans may be forgiven if they greeted the advent of a new series -- or at least a new protagonist -- with surprise and a little trepidation.

It did not take Bess Crawford many pages, though, to establish herself as a worthy addition to the world that Charles Todd creates. Re-creates, actually, is a better world.

One of the strengths that Todd brings to the novels is a deep and sympathetic understanding of how British people struggled to deal with the profound changes wrought by the Great War. Todd writes historical fiction masterfully, drawing on what must be meticulous research, but never letting the accuracy of the facts impede the flow of the fiction. The authors use their considerable knowledge effectively in their stories, but they don't call unnecessary attention to it; it all works together naturally.

In the Inspector Rutledge books, Todd evokes a nostalgia for the times before the war, when life was lived according to certainties. Whether in London or in comfortable villages, people knew their place and what their station in life dictated. After the war, they found that many of their best and brightest young men were dead, and that all the old certainties seemed to have died with them. The Inspector Rutledge books deal with that frightening, unsettled time as individuals and a nation sought to pick up the pieces and see what was left.

A Duty to the Dead takes us back one step, to the days when the war still raged, and people at home in England were dealing with its toll day by day. With Bess Crawford, readers see the war and society through the eyes of a woman, an interesting change from the Rutledge books. And Bess speaks in first person, while the Inspector Rutledge books are told in third person. On one level, these differences in viewpoint help to round out the picture of British society at this watershed moment.

Not that Bess Crawford is a meek village girl, patiently keeping the home fires burning. The daughter of a military officer, Bess spent her formative years in India, absorbing very British lessons about duty, honor and country. Though raised to a life of privilege and decorum, she felt compelled to join the nursing corps when Britain went to war. Hardly have we met her when she's injured and nearly killed as the hospital ship on which she's serving goes down off the coast of Greece.

Bess finally makes it to England for some much-needed rest and recuperation, but she brings a mission from the battle zone with her. Responding to the pleas of a dying soldier, she had promised to take an enigmatic, three-sentence message to one of his brothers. Over the objections of her father, Bess sets out to fulfill her pledge. Doing so involves a lengthy journey to a distant village by train and then horse-drawn cart. She delivers the message and settles in to visit with the dead soldier's well-to-do family for a few days.

To her surprise and disappointment, the family seems indifferent, if not outright hostile, to the message she has gone to so much trouble to convey. Before she can arrange to return to London, however, her nursing skills get her more deeply involved in the affairs of the village and of the family than she would have liked.

Slowly, Bess begins to realize that fulfilling her duty to the dead soldier is going to demand more than just making sure that his brother hears his dying words. The more she delves into the family's secrets, the more she fears that she's in as much danger in England as she was on a distant battlefield.

Like the Inspector Rutledge books, A Duty to the Dead is a compelling story, a complex mystery and a revealing look deep into human nature. Here's hoping we see a lot more of Bess Crawford.