art by Ileana Hunter. Design by Ash Collins
The Kensington Quartet; Four Charlotte Holmes mysteries set in Europe during the Great War.
The Western Front, 1916.
The world is in turmoil as the Great War stalls in the muddy fields of Europe, the stagnant frontlines scythe through the flowers of youth, as the Empire is called on to defend the Mother Land.
Charlotte and Watan are enrolled as surgeons in a field hospital whilst Branwell is a Captain in the Indian Army—a sympathetic English officer in charge of the Indians; however, his superior, Major Charles de Beque is markedly less sympathetic.
Anti-British forces are fomenting rebellion in the Indian regiments just as a British offensive is looming, when it fails the superiors task Branwell with finding a scapegoat
When Watan comes under bombardment he suffers severe shellshock and deserts the battlefield. Branwell manages to find him but the wayward surgeon is court martialled for desertion.
The Great War extracts a heavy toll on our heroes both in mental and physical scars that will never heal.
Author's Notes - Spoiler Warning
The story picks up two years after the events of book 6, Our Man in Munich, and deals with the events of the Great War, from both our heroes perspective and the Indian soldiers.
The theme here is loss; loss of life, loss of innocence and, for some, the loss of sanity. This was a very difficult book to write and it took overs 2 years to complete it, even though it is one of the smaller books in the series.
The problems were two-fold, to construct a narrative where the main narrator is mentally impaired and to accurately recreate Watan's mental state.
In this book the challenge was to introduce more points of view, not neccessarily as narrators, but to widen the scope beyond the battlefield to the home front whilst maintaining a coherent narrative.
Once again the core plot of the book was quickly laid out, the main protagonists and their goals, and, because of the subject matter, there were fewer comedic scenes - the sacrifices of all deserved respect.
Enjoy!
