Review: The Shattered Tree by: Charles Todd

Title: The Shattered Tree
Author: Charles Todd
Publisher: William Morrow
Series: Bess Crawford #8
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback ARC
Source: GEBT

Description:

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 were 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. 

My Thoughts:

Bess Crawford is an English Nurse working at an aid station helping soldiers who've been injured, sending them to England or Paris to recover.  When a very injured man cocmes to the aid station with his clothes in rags and his feet badly bloodied, Bess and her team of nurses and doctors help the injured man, when Bess catches him speak fluent German she wonders who the injured man really is?  French? German?  Of course Bess has her own issues with being shot at and while recovering in Paris decides to find this man named Phillipe Morreau, The families she inquires about seem to not be the mystery man.  Armed with only a photograph Bess is determined one way or the other to find this mystery man but will she find him or will he remain a permanent mystery?

I enjoyed reading this story and travelling to WWI and seeing how Bess learned more about the injured solider and the german connection.  This book real captivates you with it's ability to talk about World War I after all this time.  I even found myself playing classical music while reading this story.  I can't wait to see what is next for Bess Crawford.  A really captivating story.

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