What Most Americans Don't Know About World War I Is A Lot

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller is sold as a mystery, but it is so much more.  True, there are questions to be answered and problems to be solved, but the characters in the story are the biggest mystery.  Not because they are not developed, but because they are so complex, like the era in which the story is set.

World War I was a particularly horrible conflict. The War started in Europe in 1914, but the US didn't really join the battle until October 1917. When the Armistice was signed at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, our soldiers had been in Europe for a little over a year; the British and their allies had been fighting for over 4 years. The men fought in mud trenches, or went "over the top" directly into enemy fire, all for capturing or losing a few miserable feet at a time. The US suffered approximately 116,000 casualties and 205,000 wounded out of a population of 92 million. Great Britain had approximately 887,000 killed and 1,663,000 wounded out of their population of 45 million. Almost a whole generation of British men disappeared either from death, terrible injury or what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Again, it was a tragic war, but except for learning that the end of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles led to WWII, I didn't really learn much about it in school.  I think this was because WWII was so much more a part of us here in the States and affected all of us so much more.  (Hopefully it was for THAT reason and NOT that I wasn't paying attention!) But back to England in 1920...

Laurence Bartram fought in the Great War for England. Although he wasn't physically injured, he has definitely come back a changed and reclusive man.  It takes a letter from a school friend's sister, asking him to look into the suicide of her brother, Captain John Emmett, to draw him out of his self-imposed exile.  At first the quest seems fairly straight forward, but the twists and turns and dead bodies soon get in his way. I really enjoyed this book.  It is a time and place that fascinates because I DON'T know very much about it. But you need to pay attention when you're reading it!  So take it on vacation, or lock yourself into a closet, but be sure to read The Return of Captain John Emmett.

Note:  All of my statistics were taken from Wikipedia.  I am sure you will find different numbers in different places, but you get the idea!