Duty to the Dead, A A Bess Crawford Mystery

In the first book of what hopefully will become a series of, we are introduced to Bess Crawford, daughter of a career army officer, who volunteered to serve in the nursing corps at the outbreak of the war. In the course of her duties Bess nursed Arthur Graham and became very fond of him. Before he died he asked her to pass on a message to his brother, making sure she could repeat the message word for word. After the hospital ship in which she was sailing is sunk and she is injured, Bess has to take some convalescence time to recover from her injury and ordeal. So she decides to contact Arthur's family an is invited to visit. Surprisingly, the brother, Jonathan is most indifferent to the message, which leaves Bess somewhat unsettled as she is sure the message is of importance. Bess stays the weekend and is about to leave when tragedy strikes and a death leaves Bess even more uneasy as before. Eventually after nursing a sick member of the family she returns to London and is faced with another shock. What started off as simply passing on a message is turning into a matter of life and death and Bess must use all her intuitive skills to keep one step ahead of a killer who may have killed more than once...