Jacqueline Winspear » How Mysterious!

Jacqueline Winspear, Leaving Everything Most Loved

Apr 182013

I’m pretty sure I was first in line on the library wait list for Jacqueline Winspear’s latest Maisie Dobbs book, Leaving Everything Most Loved, because it’s one of my favorite mystery series. You might’ve even noticed it was one I turned to last spring and summer when life was not so good.

Much like me last year at this time, Maisie’s at a turning point in her life. Her partner, James Compton, is ready for marriage, but she’s not so sure. Her loyal assistant, Billy Beale, isn’t recovering from an injury as well as anyone would like. She feels called to travel, but isn’t sure if she’s running to something or from something. Would going abroad for a time mean leaving everything she loves most?

Before she can move ahead with travel plans, though, Maisie has a case to solve. One of her spiritual mentors, Khan, sends Mr. Pramal to her because Scotland Yard has apparently put little effort into solving the murder of his sister, Usha. The trail is cold now; Pramal has come all the way from India, and Maisie’s Scotland Yard associate, Detective Caldwell, admits that after the trail went cold the police did little to work on the case. No one was there to push them, he says.

Maisie begins by trying to get to know Usha. She finds people who knew her, talks to other Indian immigrants, even tries her hand at cooking Indian food. She learns that Usha had a gift in healing the sick and injured, through Indian folk remedies as well as her sympathetic touch. Everyone who knew her talked about her self-confidence, beauty, and spirit, to the point that Maisie wonders if someone killed her out of sheer jealousy. Of course part of what Maisie is exploring here is what it would be like for her to try to enter another culture as Usha had done. She reveals that she knows little about India and, if she decides to follow her mentor Maurice’s footsteps to travel in India, will be entirely unprepared for the revolutionary movement taking place there during the 1930s.

In the meantime, Maisie begins to realize that Billy can no longer do the job. She sends him home for additional recovery time from a head injury he incurred in an earlier book and takes over his case, that of a missing boy, who, it turns out, might be connected to Usha Pramal’s death. It’s clear that Maisie will have to make decisions not just in her personal life but also about her investigations business.

This book reminded me of the second book in a trilogy — its ending is really just a way station, not a final destination. If you haven’t read the series already, don’t start with this one… but do start.

Jacqueline Winspear, An Incomplete Revenge

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Aug 232012

I thought I’d reviewed all the Maisie Dobbs books already, but realized there’s one left: An Incomplete Revenge, the fifth book in the series.

When James Compton retains Maisie to investigate a potential business acquisition, she sends her assistant, Billy Beale, to rural Kent. As it happens, Billy usually goes to Kent every year for hop-picking, when city dwellers turn out in force to make extra money; Maisie asks him to trade positions with another hop-picker so that he can help investigate — something strange is going on, with fires occurring with alarming regularity near the factory. Only a short time later, Billy telephones Maisie and begs her to come help, because two innocent boys from London have been accused of thievery. When Maisie arrives, she finds not just this problem, but gypsies, the arson fires, and a buried secret involving a World War I German zeppelin raid. Clearly life in the countryside is not as charming or bucolic as city people might like to believe.

As always, I enjoyed Winspear’s exploration of the lingering effects of World War I — more than a decade past in this book — but sometimes I thought the story was a bit far-fetched in this one, and I particularly did not enjoy the gypsies subplot except for the family history it provided about Maisie. I think this book sets up Maisie’s future rather well (which I can say having read the ones that follow, not because I’m a gypsy clairvoyant).

It’s redundant for me to say it, but here goes: Jacqueline Winspear is an excellent author of historical fiction and of the mystery genre. Although I don’t think this one was her best, the Maisie Dobbs series is great for mystery lovers like me, but anyone who likes historical fiction and admires a strong and independent woman character will enjoy these books.

Jacqueline Winspear, Birds of a Feather

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Jun 282012

After reading and listening to most all of Jacqueline Winspear’s later Maisie Dobbs mysteries, I’m going back to catch the one I missed. So here are my thoughts on #2 in the series, Birds of a Feather(2004).

The year is 1930, and Maisie has her own private investigation agency, and an assistant, Billy Beale. Turns out she and her doctor/fellow had saved Billy’s leg during the war, and he’d do anything to help her now — particularly as the soup lines and employment lines grow. The mystery involves a missing woman, Charlotte Waite, whose father owns a chain of grocery stores, prospering despite the depression. Maisie makes Waite promise to sit down and talk with his daughter when she’s located in order to get at the deeper problems in their relationship, not something this hardworking, generous, yet controlling man is used to hear from those in his employ.

As Maisie investigates, she finds out that Charlotte had connections to a murdered woman whose case is being handled by Inspector Stratton, whom she’s run across before, and she meets Dr. Andrew Dene, a fellow protege of her mentor, Maurice Blanche. Both men are interested in her, although she’s uncomfortable with their interest. Maurice asks her to confront her relationship with her father, not only because he’s aging, but because not doing so is preventing her from building relationships with others. Thus, Maisie’s investigations force her to face her own demons as well as those of the Waite family — which, as in so many of Winspear’s other books, lie rooted in World War I.

I have to say that I did not think this one was as good as some of the later Maisie Dobbs books. I didn’t like the fact that at a couple of points Maisie had information that wasn’t shared with the reader, only hinted at, and I thought the psychological, even supernatural, aspects were overplayed (such as when she almost fainted on the street in London and later found out her father had been injured working with a horse miles away at Lady Rowan’s country home). However, it’s a credit to the author that the books have improved with time, so I’m not going to complain too much about that.

And, since I’ve already reviewed book #3 in the Maisie Dobbs series, Pardonable Lies, you know I really love the rest of the books.

Jacqueline Wispear, Pardonable Lies

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Jun 082012

In her third Maisie Dobbs mystery, Jacqueline Winspear gives our heroine much to face: her own wartime experiences and those of her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche; the possibility of lying to a client; her feelings about Dr. Andrew Dene; her friend Priscilla’s lost brother, just to name a few.

When the books opens, Maisie has been called to Scotland Yard to talk to a 13-year-old girl accused of murder. Maisie thinks there’s more to the story, and she sends her assistant, Billy Beale, to the girl’s home village to try to find out the truth. In the meantime, Maisie conducts an investigation on behalf of Sir Cecil Lawton, who promised his dying wife that he would find out if their son really died in the Great War, something she never believed. In fact, Agnes Lawton was so sure that her son was still alive that she consulted spiritualists, whom Maisie must also visit, with some uncomfortable results. Her investigation eventually takes her to France, where she investigates another wartime death for her best friend, Priscilla.

Jacqueline Winspear is one of my favorite historical mystery novelists. In this mystery we learn more about World War I aviation — both Priscilla’s brother and the Lawton boy have a connection to that — so it’s well-grounded in historical research. Yet the book is really about Maisie and the continuing effects of World War I on her and on so many others of her generation. Although it’s imagined, it feels real.

Jacqueline Winspear, Elegy for Eddie

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May 142012

I finally read all of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series (although I still owe you reviews on a couple of them, will happen someday, really) and waited anxiously for the new one. Unfortunately Elegy for Eddie turned out not to be one of my favorites in the series: still good, mind you, just not my favorite.

There are a couple of reasons for this, one involving the mystery, the other involving Maisie’s personal life. As it happens, the series is at a transitional point for both, and although transitions are necessary and often bring about improvement, they aren’t usually fun (read as a veiled reference to my divorce, still in process).

The mystery first. The story begins with a visit from a group of costermongers that Maisie knew as a child, who’ve pooled their money to ask her to investigate the death of an old friend, the eponymous Eddie, who was born in a stable and has had remarkable way with horses ever since. He was accidentally killed in a factory that he visited occasionally when the company needed help with its horses, yet the costers think there may have been more to the story. Maisie quickly agrees to investigate, recalling Eddie as a slow, gentle innocent whose mind never really grew up. But her questions soon take her into some odd territory: it seems that her best friend Priscilla’s husband is somehow connected, and there’s something strange going on at an important newspaper chain that has something to do with Hitler’s Germany (for the first time, World War II loomed larger in Maisie’s life than World War I) and that connects to people known by Maisie’s lover, James Compton.

Ahh, James: and here we have Maisie’s personal life. First of all, she’s more or less living with James at the Ebury Place mansion where she once worked as a maid — not sure which one of those items is less likely given her time and place — and second of all, she doesn’t seem to really like him anymore. I for one will be glad if Winspear doesn’t feel the need to marry Maisie off, but I sure wish Maisie would make her mind up about it — first Dr. Andrew Dene and now the good viscount finding themselves involved with a woman who doesn’t intend to give up her freedom, a woman who’s usually the epitome of honesty and introspection, yet seems to lack them when it comes to men.

The book ends with Maisie, to my mind at least, compromising on both the resolution to the mystery (of Eddie’s death, and of the newspaper/Hitler thing) and on her relationship with James. Winspear gives us reasons to make both of these things plausible, but they just don’t feel like genuine Maisie me. But then, there’s always the chance that she’ll rally in the next book. You can be sure I’ll be reading it, as soon as it comes out.

Jacqueline Winspear, Messenger of Truth

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Apr 252012

Opening a book, seeing a character’s name and realizing, “Oh, this must be the one where that character dies”… not a good thing. My own fault, though, because I’ve made a complete hash of reading Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series in any sort of order.

Messenger of Truth is Winspear’s fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery, but I’ve read three that follow it, which pretty much takes the suspense out of Maisie’s personal life. Luckily, though, the mysteries stand on their own.

In this one, Maisie is hired by a woman who believes her twin brother’s accidental death was not so accidental. Her reason is simply gut feeling, but that’s enough to interest psychologist/investigator Dobbs. She begins by investigating Georgina Bassington-Hope’s family and her twin Nicholas’ friends, all members of the art community, which is populated by British artists and dealers, American buyers, and even some unscrupulous smugglers.

Maisie is also confronting some personal demons — particularly her relationships with Andrew Dene and with her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche, as well as her attempts to balance independence with the possibility of loneliness. She also demonstrates a strong sense of social justice, faced with the inequity of health care based on income.

I’ll just conclude by saying that Maisie is a reliably consistent mystery series with both good plot and strong characterization. Try it!

Jacqueline Winspear, The Mapping of Love and Death

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Mar 282012

I’ve read lots of good books and series since I started this blog, but Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series has to be one of my favorites. The Mapping of Love and Death, the seventh book in the series, takes Maisie back to France, where she served during World War I. Although it’s 1932 now, the remains of a group of British soldiers have recently been unearthed — a cartography unit that included Michael Clifton, an American who enlisted out of loyalty to his father’s home country.

Clifton’s parents hire Maisie to identify a young woman, “the English Nurse,” who sent Michael a series of love letters, but it doesn’t take Maisie long to figure out that Michael’s death needs investigating, too. Winspear based Michael on a real unidentified British soldier, which makes the tale that much more compelling. I’d also never read anything about or considered the importance of mapmaking in war, so there’s also something to learn here — plus an interesting side trip into documentary filmmaking during the war that I quite enjoyed, even if it was an awfully big coincidence that the film included Michael Clifton.

Although the case is interesting, it’s Maisie’s personal life that always draws me in. She’s finally getting past the war and the terrible effects it had on her and so many others who served in (or near) the trenches, and there are some changes at the end of this book that have significant implications for what will follow. I’ve already reviewed the eighth book in the series, A Lesson in Secrets, and it was one of my favorites in the series, so I’m really fired up about #9, Elegy for Eddie.

A Lesson in Secrets

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Nov 162011

I started Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series because of its emphasis on World War I, but in the latest book, A Lesson in Secrets (2011), the clouds of World War II are gathering, and Maisie’s right in the thick of it.

Maisie’s past work for Scotland Yard leads to an assignment to go undercover as a professor to a college in Cambridge to investigate some worrisome activities there, but when the college’s founder, Greville Liddicote, is murdered, it’s hard for Maisie not to get involved in that investigation, too. Liddicote authored a pacifist children’s book during the Great War that had influenced people on both sides of the lines, much to the consternation of military and government officials. In the end, Maisie’s warnings about Nazi influences on the college campus go unheeded.

Meanwhile, Billy Beale keeps Maisie’s detective agency going by investigating the apparently accidental death of the husband of Sandra (a character from a previous book), which appears not to have been accidental after all.

As this is the eighth Maisie Dobbs book but only the third I’ve read, I’ve completely broken my read-series-in-order rule with this one, but I’m really enjoying it anyway. Winspear is a good writer, so even when I know I’m missing something — like Sandra’s backstory — I know enough that it doesn’t bother me.

I really wish I’d started this series years ago and read them as they come out, but I’m not going to let that stop me from reading the others, even if they are out of order. I’m delighted to see that Maisie’s moving out of the post-World War I era and into World War II.

Book #8 in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Among the Mad

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Oct 122011

My local library branch is small, so small that its entire audiobook selection sits on a few small shelves. So when I was in desperate need of an audiobook mystery, I wasn’t holding out much hope for anything good — but then I spied Jacqueline Winspear’s Among the Mad (2009). I’ve only read the very first Maisie Dobbs, and this one is faaaaar down the line (10 years later in Maisie’s life), but beggars can’t be choosers.

But in reality you won’t have to beg me to read any other books in this series. I enjoyed Among the Mad just as much as the first novel in the series, and for many of the same reasons. Maisie is a bit unexpected as a character; she’s not rich, but she’s well educated and has the right connections through her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The effects of World War I still linger, in England and in her own life, and they are the direct cause for and solution of the mystery.

The book begins with Maisie spotting a man, apparently a World War I veteran with serious injuries and shell shock, who looks at right her just as he blows himself up. Soon afterward, the police receive a communication that threatens more violence and mentions Maisie by name, so they ask her to help out with the investigation.

Maisie soon finds herself drawing upon the people she knew during and after the war, who had helped treat soldiers with shell shock; she suspects the threatening message was written by one such man. Soon she finds that MI5 is involved, as well as the police, and political intrigue ensues.

In addition to trying to stop the mysterious man, who evidently knows how to use chemical weapons, Maisie also attempts to straighten out her personal life, her dear friend Priscilla’s depression and drinking, and her assistant, Billy, whose wife has been committed to a most dreadful insane asylum because she can’t get past the grief of losing her daughter.

In short, madness abounds. It’s hard to say sometimes who’s madder — the shell-shocked soldier, or the people chasing him? The grieving mother, or the medical staff treating her? and so forth — and Maisie must try to sort it all out while preventing a disaster. Winspear‘s reflections on the continuing impact of the war on the lost generation are thought-provoking and more than just a backdrop for the mystery.

Book #8 in the Audio Book Challenge

Maisie Dobbs

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Jun 032011

Although I’d seen the books around and heard other people talk about her series, Maisie Dobbs is not at all what I expected. I thought she’d be posh, along the lines of Lady Georgiana or Daisy Dalrymple, perhaps, but instead she’s a former maid who’s had the opportunity to study psychology at Cambridge and is now a private investigator.

The first book in the series, Maisie Dobbs (2004), takes place in London, where Maisie opens her first office following years of tutoring by Dr. Maurice Blanche, a friend of her academic sponsor (and employer), Lady Rowan.

Her connection to World War I, which I’m remembering this week, is that she was a nurse in France for a number of years; as the book goes on, we learn how just how much the war has had an everlasting impact on her life and on pretty much all of Britain. In addition, the mystery itself focuses on the effects of the war, as Maisie uncovers a scandal taking place at the Retreat, a home for soldiers who can’t blend back into their former lives due to the mental and physical injuries wrought by the war.

However, Maisie’s investigation takes a backseat to her back story, as Jacqueline Winspear introduces the reader to Maisie’s childhood, employment, and education, in addition to some glimpses into her time as a nurse. I assume that the other books in the series spend less time on her background and more on the mystery, but this one is a nice introduction to the series.

And the conclusion (and I don’t mean the resolution of the mystery) is devastating. If you want to imagine the aftermath of World War I, this is a good place to start.

Book #4 in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge