Tug of War

by Barbara Cleverly Narrated by Terry Wale

Overview

Joe Sandilands has been dispatched to France to stay as the guest of a glamorous French war-widow who is determined that Joe should support her claim that a mysterious shell-shocked soldier is her husband. The problem is that four other claimants have identified him differently. Joe decides to investigate the four claimants and picks his way through a tangle of lies, deceit and manipulation, uncovering a cleverly concealed murder committed during the war years. When he finally discovers the identity of the soldier, he faces an even greater dilemma: he must not only to solve a killing in the past, but avert a tragedy in the future.

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Stasio

…despite her mastery at vivid scene-setting, Cleverly never loses sight of the historical puzzle that is central to her story. Simply put, it's a stunner.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Set in 1926 France, Cleverly's impressive sixth Joe Sandilands novel (after 2005's The Bee's Kiss) finds the Scotland Yard detective, still scarred by WWI, taking a relaxing jaunt around Provence until Sir Douglas Redmayne of the British War Office gives him a sensitive assignment: to ascertain the identity of an amnesiac war veteran who's surfaced in a French hospital speaking English. As the French government would provide a lucrative pension to the soldier's family, there's no shortage of people who claim him as their relation. Accompanied by his precocious ward and honorary niece, Dorcas Joliffe, Sandilands probes the four most likely candidates, each of whom has ample motive to lie. Before long, an old murder is uncovered, further complicating the quest to identify the soldier. Cleverly maintains the high standards set by earlier Sandilands tales, blending a sophisticated whodunit with full-blooded characters and a revealing look at her chosen time and place. (Aug.)

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Kirkus Reviews

Four French families claim relationship to a shell-shocked soldier. Complications ensue. Mireille Desforges contends that the soldier, a survivor of World War I, is her married lover and describes a birthmark in his nether region to prove it. The Tellancourts, insisting that he's their son, identify the same mark. Madame Langlois identifies him as the child from her first marriage. Aline Houdart, swearing that he's her husband Clovis, adds peculiar earlobes to her description of him, although her son Georges and her husband's cousin Charles-Auguste demur. Matters are complicated because the few words the unidentified (or over-identified) soldier speaks are English, not French. So Joe Sandilands of the Yard is called in to investigate. Accompanying him is his sister's adopted charge, precocious Dorcas (The Bee's Kiss, 2006, etc.). As they sort through the various stories, yet another person appears to claim the man: Didier Marmont, a mayor from the Ardennes, who fought at Chemin Des Dames in 1917. After further revelations of amours, wartime billets and executions for desertion, Sandiland is able to put the right name to the soldier and return him to his home, where yet another plot twist awaits. There's a bit too much of the smart-mouthed Dorcas, but puzzle-lovers will be appeased by the tale's crafty convolutions.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173538017
Publisher:	Soundings, Limited
Publication date:	03/01/2017
Series:	Joe Sandilands Series , #6
Edition description:	Unabridged

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