Maisie Dobbs
Created by Jacqueline Winspear

In her spawling, ambitious eponymously-titled historical novel, MAISIE DOBBS is a young working class girl in World War One-era England with a love of books and learning who originally works as a housemaid for social activist Lady Rowan Compton. Lady Compton takes the young girl under her wing, and rewards her with an education. But World War One interupts everyone's lives, and after a stint as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, Maisie is hired by her Lady's good friend, Maurice Blanche, a rather well-known forensic scientist, philosopher and investigator who runs a private detective agency.

Her debut opens in early 1929, with Maisie just having opened her own Trade and Personal Investigations office in Bloomsbury, but much of the book flashes back to Maise's childhood. Not so much a mystery, then, as the story of a woman and her life and times (although there is a juicy little mystery in it, all about WWI vets and a possible cover-up by the British Army, and Maisie is a appealingly intuitive and compassionate detective), the book is getting all sorts of praise to its piercing and evocative treatment of the Great War and its tragic and sustained aftermath.

By the sequel, 2004's Birds of a Feather, Maisie is a full-fledged private detective, complete with her own office and a brass nameplate on the door which reads "Maisie Dobbs, "Psychologist and Investigator."

Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in England and later worked in publishing and as a marketing communications consultant in the U.K. before emigrating to the United States. She now lives in California.

UNDER OATH

• "... a delightful mix of mystery, war story and romance set in WWI-era England."
  (Publishers Weekly)
  .
• "Winspear does a beautiful job of re-creating the atmosphere and class strata of early-20th-century England, while never overburdening her story with details. Dedicating this novel to her grandparents, both of whom were injured during World War I, the author keenly explores the lasting damage that was inflicted on soldiers long before post-traumatic stress disorder became a catchphrase. But, as its title
  makes clear, Maisie Dobbs focuses on one woman and her development as an innovative and forward-thinking individual. Much less time is spent here exploring her actual detective work, and that's unfortunate. It would have been interesting to observe the nuances of investigating a crime in a society so ruled by sex, class and social structures. Still, Maisie proves to be an engaging and original character. Now that her background has been fully revealed, perhaps we'll see more of her detection practices in the future.
  (Cindy Chow, The Rap Sheet)

NOVELS

• Maisie Dobbs (2003). Buy this book
• Birds of a Feather (2004). Buy this book
• Pardonable Lies (2005). Buy this book
• Messenger of Truth (2006) .. Buy this book
• An Incomplete Revenge (2008) ...Buy this book
  

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.