Burrowing into Book: "A Strange Scottish Shore," by Juliana Gray; and "A Casualty of War," by Charles Todd

Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

Reviews of Selective Readings

                                                                                                                               November 22, 2017

“A Strange Scottish Shore” and “A Casualty of War,” are historical mysteries, both authored under pen names. Juliana Gray is my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams. Charles Todd is the name used by the mother-son team of Caroline and Charles Todd. 

“A Strange Scottish Shore”

Juliana Gray

“In the space of an instant, I was hurtling backward, or forward,

 or upward, propelled toward some magnetic pole.”

                                                                                                A Strange Scottish Shore

                                                                                                Juliana Gray

Beatriz’s interest in history and mythology is combined in this story with her fascination for time travel. In the Author’s Note, at the end of the book, she explains her concept: “In my own head, time makes sense as kind of river flowing in one direction, and time travel as the ability to jump around to different points along that river.”

As in her previous novel, A Most Extraordinary Pursuit, we follow Emmeline Rose Truelove, a researcher for Arthur Maximilian Haywood (the Duke of Olympia). In this story, she travels to a castle on Scotland’s Orkney Islands to study an artifact, a suit of clothing, that had belonged to a Selkie who had risen from the sea to marry the castle’s first laird. Haywood is already there when she sets out. Emmeline is accompanied by Lord Silverton, a rakish and mysterious young man who is in love with her. The year is 1906. The story she tells, as was true in her first in this series, in based on a myth. In the first, it was the tale of the Minotaur and his labyrinth on the island of Crete. In this, the story is based on Selkies, mythological creatures who are seals in the water, but once on land shed their skins to become human. In western Scotland and Northern Ireland, tales of Selkies go back over two hundred years. This legend is explained in a rubric before each chapter: a quote from a book the Duke of Olympia will write in the future, in 1921 – “The Book of Time,” by A.M. Haywood.

Without providing details, I can tell you that Silverton disappears on the way north, and that Emmeline travels back 600 years to find him, in a manner plausible, at least to this reader. Silverton speaks, in almost fatalist fashion, of rules that govern our lives: “Everything’s guided by rules, isn’t it? Even the things we don’t understand. Our whole lives are spent trying to determine what the rules are.” I will not tell how the story ends, but don’t be surprised with the occasional spectral appearances of Queen Victoria and Emmeline’s recently-deceased father.

“A Casualty of War”

Charles Todd

“We were so close to ending this wretched war. It was hard to watch

 men die when rumors promised safety and peace so near at hand.”

                                                                                                A Casualty of War

                                                                                                Charles Todd

This is the ninth Bess Crawford mystery by Charles Todd. The mother-son writing team have also published nineteen mysteries starring Ian Rutledge, a police detective haunted by memories of the Great War. The Todd’s interest is World War I, and especially the psychological effects that War had on those who served: “As if the mind could cope on demand, and put the darkness away.” The authors are Americans, but their characters British.

The story opens in the War’s final days, with Bess Crawford as a nurse in a forward aid station. The Germans are in retreat. Twice, a wounded Captain Alan Travis, a Barbadian related to a wealthy Suffolk family, is delivered to the aid station. He claims to have been shot both times by another English soldier who looked like his great uncle. He suspects it was his cousin James, a brother officer whom he had met earlier while on leave.  It turns out, though, that James had been killed in action shortly after the two cousins met – thus, the mystery. Doctors and the military claim he suffers from shell shock, or what we now know call PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. After the War, Captain Travis is returned to England for rehabilitation, where Bess finds him strapped down in a mental ward. As her former patient, she disbelieves the diagnosis and feels responsible to right a wrong. She and her family’s trusted friend, Sergeant Major Simon Brandon travel to the Travis ancestral home where contested wills, imposter claimants and murder charges greet them. After some harrowing adventures, Bess and Sergeant Major Brandon prevail and Captain Travis is vindicated.   

Vera Brittain is a heroine to Beatriz, with her moving account of the Great War and its aftermath, “A Testament to Youth.” Brittain must also have influenced the Todds. “A Strange Scottish Shore” and “A Casualty of War” are fun and compelling reads. Why not jump around that river of time, if not literally at least fictionally, to a point when political partisanship was less vicious than today?