No Graves as Yet is the first of Anne Perry’s new mystery series set in England before and during World War ! which includes five entries in all (Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, We Shall Not Sleep in that order). Her previous two very popular series took place in Victorian London.
The story centers around the Reavley family in and around Cambridge on the eve of World War I. The description of the beauty of Cambridge and the lives of the young men who study there, many of whom will not survive the war, is bittersweet in the extreme and is an absorbing backdrop to the plot of the mystery. John and Alys Reavley are killed in a car accident on the same day that a Serbian dissident assassinates Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. He is carrying an alarming document to his son Matthew who is in the secret service. It is soon discovered that their deaths are not an accident and intrigue begins to mount.
In stark contrast to this is A Test of Wills by Charles Todd. This is the first of the Inspector Ian Rutledge series of mysteries that take place in England just after the war. The massive destruction and death wrought by the war, which few ever believed could be possible, is now a reality. Virtually everyone has been affected or damaged by it in some way, including Inspector Rutledge, a veteran who regularly has to fight his own demon to maintain his sanity.
A famous and popular colonel is murdered in a small country village, and the main suspect is an equally famous and popular war hero, decorated by the King himself. The main witness is a shell shocked veteran who has descended into alcoholism and madness, an object of shame and disgust.
The portrayal of a community recovering from a terrible war, now having to face a crime to which there seems to be no easy or comfortable solution is excellent. Inspector Rutledge is an extremely sympathetic well drawn character, and the mystery story itself is fascinating. As a police procedural series goes, this is one of the best. (NOTE: Charles Todd is a pseudonym for a mother and son writing team who live in the United States. I find this amazing. I never would have guessed—they seem quite genuinely English to me).
Submitted by Jane Brown.