March book choice

This book introduces the Maisie Dobbs Novels mystery series.  Our library has, in addition, the next three novels in this series.

The story

At first glance, Maisie Dobbs’ inaugural case as a private investigator looks dreadfully routine: Christopher Davenham, whose wife has been making unexplained weekday excursions from their London home, has employed Maisie to discover whether he is being betrayed.  However, Maisie recalls the advice of her enigmatic mentor, Maurice Blanche, that “the extraordinary hides behind the camouflage of the ordinary.”  Events prove Maurice correct, as the trail of Davenham’s wife leads Maisie to a mysterious, carefully guarded home for Disabled World War I veterans—and toward a painful confrontation with her own haunting past.  Set in England and France in the 1910s and 1920s, Maisie Dobbs steps beyond the conventional confines of a mystery novel by telling the story of a brave, brilliant young woman who rises from her working-class origins to study at Cambridge and earn a place as a respected detective.  In addition, with astonishing subtlety and sympathy, the novel relives the heroic struggles and devastating losses of those who strove and suffered in the so-called War to End All Wars.  (“An Introduction to Maisie Dobbs, Penguin Books, 2003)

Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in County Kent, England.  Following a career in academic publishing and marketing communications, she emigrated to California in 1990.  Her debut novel, Maisie Dobbs, was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award (Mystery Writers of America), and won the Agatha, Alex, and McCavity Awards for best first novel.