When the mother-son writing team known as Charles Todd released their first Bess Crawford novel, it was a nice change of pace from their regular series --- the intense Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries. There is just something special about Bess and her adventures as a World War I British battlefield nurse. THE SHATTERED TREE now marks the eighth installment in the series, and each story presents the horrors of warfare alongside some serious moral and social issues of those times.

THE SHATTERED TREE is about history and contains a lot of symbolism as well. There is reference to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the adversaries that were created that still exist up to Bess's WWI era. The shattered tree of the title is referenced in the novel’s opening pages and provides symbolic representation of neutrality. It lies in an area that is referred to at war time as “no man's land,” and could also symbolically allude to the Alsace-Lorraine area that was the borderline between France and Germany in the 1870 skirmish.

"THE SHATTERED TREE is another great read, and Bess Crawford wears many hats in this terrific series: dedicated nurse, soldier's daughter, seeker of truth and healer of wounds, both psychological and physical."

The book is set just one month prior to the end of WWI, a fact that surely will not be lost on fans of the series. Will Bess' tales continue once the war is over? Bess is directly in the middle of the action in THE SHATTERED TREE as a Scottish patient attacks a French patient in the middle of the night during her medical watch. She is not sure what to make of this, especially since the French soldier is found so far from the front line of his own troop.

It is obvious to Bess that French and any non-British soldiers are treated differently from British ones. Especially in the case of alleged deserters. What she cannot understand is why the strange injured man is wearing a tattered French uniform yet speaks fluent German. As she begins to show interest in this special patient, she reopens wounds that still exist between France and Germany.

Bess looks into the incident and watches as her superiors brush it off as merely the fact that the solider must be from Alsace-Lorraine. She recognizes that there is much more to this story. What drew this French solider so far away from his own battle lines, and is there any significance to his appearance right at the time when the German army is making a last-ditch effort to overcome their current WWI opponents?

Before Bess can investigate further, she herself is injured on duty. She is sent to Paris to recover, and it is here, in the heart of France, that the answers to the mystery in which she has become involved may lie. She finds an unlikely ally in the form of American soldier Captain Barkley, with whom she has crossed paths before. They combine forces to determine the whereabouts of the mysterious French soldier --- obviously an Alsatian --- and to uncover who he is and where the allegiances may lie for someone who comes from a symbolic neutral territory.

THE SHATTERED TREE is another great read, and Bess Crawford wears many hats in this terrific series: dedicated nurse, soldier's daughter, seeker of truth and healer of wounds, both psychological and physical. Charles Todd continues to deliver fine stories from a climactic era in world history, and their series never ceases to surprise.