Book Review: *Maisie Dobbs* by Jacqueline Winspear

• Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (May 25, 2004)
• ISBN-13: 978-0142004333

Back-of-the-book blurb: Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her very first assignment, seemingly an ordinary infidelity case, soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review: Maisie, Maisie, Maisie!  She’s poised, she’s intelligent, she has love for her father, respect for her employers, and honor toward her country.  She’s well-mannered, thrifty, and compassionate.  What’s not to like about this housemaid turned private investigator?

The structure of the novel is interesting – fully half of it is backstory, sandwiched between two pieces of “present day bread.”  I really appreciated this heavy dose of Maisie’s past; it explained how she got to be where she was (in her late 20s).  With this back-and-forth between time, we see enough of Maisie’s life that we’re satisfied with both the mystery/story and the resolution/conclusion.  It also leaves us curious to learn more about Maisie’s apprenticeship, more about the few years before we meet her in 1929, and perhaps even more about her childhood, before her mother passed away.  I’m also eager, of course, to see where she’s going!

Another convention that stood out to me is the way Winspear peppers the novel with wisdom from Maurice Blanche, Maisie Dobbs’ mentor.  We don’t see the apprenticeship, but when Maisie is thinking about the case, or wondering how to approach a problem, she falls back on Maurice’s mantras:

Truth walks toward us on the paths of our questions … As soon as you think you have the answer, you have closed the path and may miss vital new information.  Wait awhile in the stillness, and do not rush to conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable the unknowing.

and when “Maurice had counseled her … when she was the silent observer as he listened to a story, gently prodding with a question, a comment, a sigh, or a smile:”

The story takes up space as a knot in a piece of wood.  If the knot is removed, a hole remains.  We must ask ourselves, how will this hole that we have opened be filled?  The hole, Maisie, is our responsibility.

And one last quote from Maurice, as I’m quite fond of his pithy advice.  Here an associate has just shared an unsettling story, and Maisie allows him some time in silence:

Never follow a story with a question, Maisie, not immediately.  And remember to acknowledge the storyteller, for in some way even the messenger is affected by the story he brings.

Although much of the story takes place during the World War, Winspear writes in such a way that the isn’t in the midst of the combat.  We see the ripple effect of the war, reaching all classes of people.  As for those who are in the trenches, Winspear shows us the anticipation they feel, and the after-effects of the War on them.  Sometimes this anticipation, this peeking around the edges, is more chilling than being engulfed in the action.

Jacqueline Winspear began the Maisie Dobbs series with this eponymous title (originally published in hardcover in 2003), the series has grown to a eighth title, A Lesson in Secrets, to be published by HarperCollins in March 2011).  I’ve read just the one, so far, but hope to keep up with the “I’m Mad for Maisie” Readalong at Book Club Girl’s site.