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Scotland Yard Officer Joe Sandilands plans to take some time off to escort his honorary niece, Dorcas Joliffe, to see her father. Orlando Joliffe is in southern France, with his other children and his current mistress, working on a new painting and hobnobbing with the artsy crowd. Dorcas has decided that it is time for her to spend some time with her real family and Sandilands was pressured into taking her. Unfortunately, Scotland Yard has no regard for his plans and proposes a side trip on this journey. One of the recent war prisoners released from the German camps is in a hospital in France suffering from shell shock. Over a thousand individuals have claimed him as a lost family member; however, only a few people seem to have legitimate claims. The Yard wants Sandilands to investigate these families to see if their lost loved one truly is the shell-shocked man. Dr Varimont, the doctor in charge of the patient's care, has nicknamed him Thibauld, as the patient resembles a family member of his. Dr Varimont believes that Thibauld might in fact be English, as the few words he has heard so far have been in English rather than French. Scotland Yard believes that the Thibauld is the missing husband of Madame Clovis Houdart. Aline Houdart is sure that the man is her husband even though her son and cousin do not agree. Dorcas and Sandilands find themselves spending most of the time at the Houdart vineyard. There they discover secrets dating back to the war that will impact the fate of Thibauld and the entire Houdart family. In addition, they unearth a skeleton whose identity and murderer must be discovered. Sandilands, with the aid of Dorcas, must resolve these mysteries before the killer strikes again. TUG OF WAR is the sixth book in the Joe Sandilands mystery series. As the series has progressed from THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE to TUG OF WAR, Sandilands has grown as a character as he works on various criminal investigations and deals with people injured both physically and emotionally in the First World War. Even though TUG OF WAR takes place in 1926, eight years after the Armistice, the citizens of both France and England are still trying to make sense of their losses and to find hope for the future. For former soldiers such as Sandilands, the experiences of the war still impact their lives as they try to make sense of the world that they now live in and deal with the men with similar experiences and injuries. Barbara Cleverly does a good job of using her characters' personal struggles to rebuild their lives to reflect the struggle of the rebuilding of a country - both architecturally and emotionally. I enjoy the Joe Sandilands series and always look forward to a new release. One of the things that I enjoyed the most about TUG OF WAR is Dorcas. Dorcas is about fourteen (dates not being important in her family) years old and very world savvy. Even though her family's fortunes fluctuate depending on the day and time, she is well aware of social norms and of how she is expected to behave. Her insight into the French families investigated and the world in general help provide detail and depth that Sandilands would have missed without her input. The friendship between Dorcas and Sandilands is strong and I would be interesting in seeing them solve additional crimes together.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, June 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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