Reviews
"There's something strange about the title character of Jacqueline Winspear's deft debut novel, Maisie Dobbs, which opens in London in 1929. For a clever and resourceful young woman who has just set herself up in business as a private investigator, Maisie seems a bit too sober and much too sad. Romantic readers sensing a story-within-a-story won't be disappointed at the sensitivity and wisdom with which Maisie resolves her first professional assignment, an apparent case of marital infidelity that turns out to be a wrenching illustration of the sorrowful legacies of World War I.
"My job is rather more complex than you might have imagined," says Maisie, citing her moral responsibility to restore some equilibrium to the people whose lives she disrupts. Since
these people are the most severely wounded veterans of war -- men shattered in mind and body -- her psychological approach proves especially humane. But when Maisie's investigation into a convalescent home for such men sends her back in time to her experiences as a battlefield nurse, she must face her own nightmares. Winspear takes her through her ordeal with compassion--and the promise of brighter days ahead."
--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
From its dedication to the author’s paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother, who were both injured in World War I, to its powerful conclusion, this is a poignant and compelling story that explores war’s lingering and insidious impact on its survivors. The book opens in 1929 as Maisie Dobbs opens an office dedicated to "discreet investigations" and traverses back and forth between her present case and the long shadows case by World War I. What starts out as a plea by an anxious husband for Maisie to discover why his regularly lies about her whereabouts turns into a journey of discovery whose answers and indeed whose very questions lie in a quiet rural cemetary where many war dead are buried. In Maisie, Winspear has created a complex new investigator who, tutored by the wise Maurice Blanche, recognizes that in uncovering the actions of the body, she is accepting responsibility for the soul. British-born but now living in America, first novelist Winspear writes in simple, effective prose, capturing the post World War I era effectively and handling human drama with compassionate sensitivity while skillfully avoiding cloying sentimentality. At the end, the reader is left yearning for more discreet investigations into the nature of what it means to feel truth. Highly Recommended.
--Caroline Hallsworth, Library Journal Starred Review
Jacqueline Winspear's debut novel, Maisie Dobbs, is a quirky literary creation. If you cross-pollinated Vera Brittain's classic World War I memoir, Testament of Youth, with Dorothy Sayers' Harriet Vane mysteries and a dash of the old PBS series "Upstairs, Downstairs," you'd approximate the peculiar range of topics and tones within this novel. Neither flora nor fauna, fish nor fowl, it also behaves by turns like a romance, a tale of terror, an historical novel and a primer on holistic health.
Personally, I'm ready for a dose of the eclectic. So far, this season's big books have been the new Harry Potter, which is a wondrous but, after all, familiar phenomenon, and Hillary Clinton's autobiography, which I've dipped into at random and found to be as measured and monotonous as the annual report of some non-profit agency. In Maisie Dobbs, Winspear has concocted what's essentially a class-conscious feminist fairy tale about a woman without advantages finding autonomy. Winspear shores up this engaging vision with plenty of solid historical detail. For instance, she vividly describes the pre-dawn fireplace cleaning rituals Maisie once performed as a maid and, later, off the battlefield, the routine she executes of disinfecting wounds with garlic juice. As befits a fairy tale, the cast of offbeat, benevolent secondary characters in the novel, like Lady Rowan and Maisie's noble vegetable-hawker father, are very winning. But it's Maisie herself who is the most bizarre draw here. She's part clairvoyant, part intellectual, part New Age therapist. When she's questioning hesitant witnesses, she'll discreetly practice the art of touch or invite them on a walk in the park to relax their muscles and therefore their tongues.
To the extent that it is a mystery, Maisie Dobbs tackles a big philosophical subject that has preoccupied so many other serious mystery novels; that is, how do human beings really come to know the truth. Unlike champions of pure reason like Sherlock Holmes, Maisie also relies on the wisdom of yoga, Freud and feng shui to diagnose and heal a troubled world.
--Maureen Corrigan on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. Excerpted from full transcript.
In Winspear’s inspired debut novel, a delightful mix of mystery, war story and romance set in WWI-era England, humble housemaid Maisie Dobbs climbs convincingly up Britain’s social ladder, becoming in turn a university student, a wartime nurse and, ultimately, a private investigator. Her first sleuthing case, which begins as a simple marital infidelity investigation, leads to a trail of war-wounded soldiers lured to a remote convalescent home in Kent from which no one seems to emerge alive. A refreshing heroine, appealing secondary characters and an absorbing plot, make Winspear a new writer to watch. Publishers’ Weekly. Maisie Dobbs earned a Publisher’s Weekly "starred review," was an Editor’s Pick and was also listed as one of the best mysteries of 2003. There isn’t a lot of room for originality in the sleuthing genre, but Winspear has come up with something surprisingly fresh in her first novel. The book is set mostly in Britain, before, during and after World War I. It’s rich with period atmosphere and the anxieties of this fast-changing moment in world history.
--David Lazarus, The San Francisco Chronicle
The best genre fiction offers the promise of richer things. Among detective writers, the early Spenser novels of Robert Parker and the Easy Rollins series by Walter Mosley are prominent examples. British novelist Jacqueline Winspear may have a new contender in Maisie Dobbs. This first novel is very much in the grand tradition of the English detective series but there are many hints of something more powerful and touching in the book. Set in 1929, the story slowly examines the impact of World War I on the lives and social fabric of England . . . the depth of Maisie’s feeling and the solidity of the framing events capture the melancholy mood of an era in which people had to deal with survivor’s guilt as well as the damaged heroes who return from a new kind of war with new kinds of wounds."
--Tom Butler, The News Journal, Delaware
Maisie Dobbs is the perfect heroine for this atmospheric mystery -– smart and self-reliant, but also vulnerable, haunted by her experiences as a nurse in France during WWI. In this wonderful debut, we care deeply about her, as her very first case as a private investigator brings her face-to-face with the demons in her own past. I hope Maisie is around for a long, long, time.
--Kristine Kaufman, The Snow Goose Bookstore, Stamwood, Washington. Kristine’s review accompanied the listing for Maisie Dobbs in the Booksense 76 Top Ten list for July/August 2003, where Maisie Dobbs achieved the #4 position.
Anglophiles, and mystery fans in general, have a real treat in store with Jacqueline Winspear's first book Maisie Dobbs, set in 1929 England. Its heroine has seen a great deal in her thirty years. At the age of thirteen, she went into service for a wealthy London family. There she soon caught the attention of her employer Lady Rowan Compton, an enlightened middle-aged woman wishing to do more for those less fortunate. Recognizing Maisie's burning desire to better herself, Lady Compton arranged for her old friend Maurice Blanche to tutor Maisie in the time that she was able to spare from her duties. Maurice Blanche is a great intellectual, with experience as a private investigator for the wealthy, as well as for the government during World War I. In addition to more conventional studies, Blanche imparted to Maisie 'the forensic science of the whole person' and taught her to fully appreciate and use her intellect. With Blanche's tutelage, Maisie was able to enter Cambridge University's Girton College for women. However, after attending for only one year, Maisie (like millions of other young Britons of her day) felt compelled to serve her country during the war. So she left college and was soon sent to France as a nurse. The novel begins in 1929 after Maisie has been back in England for more than ten years. She learned enough from Blanche to be able to set herself up as a private investigator. One of her first cases involves tracing the history of a mysterious man, a former soldier who has died under suspicious circumstances at a retreat set up for severely injured veterans. As she investigates, Maisie is drawn back into the past and the reader learns about her own background, including a very troubled time during the war. Maisie is a wonderfully-drawn protagonist, a woman wise beyond her years. Her past has made her empathize with the many people still suffering the after-effects of the war. 'It was the wounds of the mind that touched her, those who still fought their battles again and again each day, though the country was at peace'. As both a seeker of truth and a healer, Maisie is able to bring comfort to many whose lives she touches. Maisie Dobbs is reminiscent of the excellent Charles Todd series (in which Inspector Ian Rutledge suffers from his World War I experiences to the extent that he is haunted by alter-ego Hamish, who will not let him forget the war). But Winspear brings a complementary female perspective to bear on this very traumatic time in British history. We can only hope she will continue to write many more Maisie Dobbs books, which are a welcome addition to the mystery field.
--BookLoons.com, Historical Book Reviews |
