Rating: 4 ★
Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
SoHo Press, 2003
Genre: Historical Mystery
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Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton and her friend Maurice Blanche soon took the gifted Maisie under their wings, helping her gain a college education. The outbreak of the Great War changed everything. As a nurse, Maisie left for France to serve at the Front, where she found—and lost—an important part of herself. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive. To solve her first case, she must finally confront the ghost that has haunted her for over a decade.
My thoughts
Do you ever read the editorial reviews of a book and think that they’re trying too hard to sell the book? That the book won’t live up to the hype?
I am pleased to say that Maisie Dobbs surpassed all expectations. Miss Dobbs was every bit the self-reliant, vulnerable, intuitive sleuth she is presented as, and this book is truly a gem. It’s a story-within-a-story, at once emotional, mysterious, and historically immersive.
I took off a star to compensate for what I felt was a lacking mystery. Much of the book is backstory—how Maisie grew up, the circumstances leading to her fortunate education, her keen mentorship under Maurice Blanche, her time as a World War I nurse. It was all beautifully written, and did eventually relate to the mystery that slowly unfolded, but for a book billed as a historical mystery, there was certainly more history and less mystery. Readers seeking nail-biting, head-spinning mystery might be, therefore, disappointed.
But certainly not disappointed in Jacqueline Winspear’s masterful storytelling and writing. Really, the whole book was gorgeous.
As of the writing of this post, there are sixteen books in the Maisie Dobbs series, with a seventeenth out March 22, 2022. I hope to find stronger mysteries in future books in the series, which I am bound to pick up soon.