Maisie Dobbs - Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maisie Dobbs starts out in the late 1920s, with Maisie just setting up her investigation business. It gets into the first real case, then takes a significant detour into the past to give Maisie’s backstory - I’d say probably half the book shows her childhood up through WWI nursing experiences. So although there’s a mystery, it really felt like a WWI historical novel much of the time, along with the horrors and sadness it left behind. Once Maisie’s character is fully established, it comes back to the original mystery and wraps it up quickly. The story of the past does end up being related to the mystery, so it all ties together in the end.

I found the story absorbing. I really liked Maisie - she’s smart and manages to work her way out of servitude using her brains and her connections. But once WWI comes into her life, the story takes a tragic turn. For some time after finishing it, I felt haunted by it. It was so sad! Usually, this would have stopped me from enjoying it, but the surrounding narrative of Maisie’s life in the 1920s made me feel that this is just the beginning of Maisie’s story. I have hope that she will find her way out of the grief and pain of what’s behind her and be able to forge a new life. I’m guessing that future installments will also focus less on her personal story and more on whatever mysteries she’s investigating.

One thing I found kind of weird is the way that Maisie conducts her investigations. I would have thought her brains would come into it more, but she relies on some sort of sixth sense. For example, she puts herself in the physical position of the person she’s studying, and that allows her to feel what they are feeling. She uses that intuition to help her solve her cases. She also has premonitions and there’s more emphasis on general intuition than facts and clues. I don’t know if this will bother me going forward or not. Her mind is sharp, so I’d like to see her use it as well as her hunches.

For now, I know that her story affected me, and I want to see what’s in store for her.


Original Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this, even though it was really sad in places. Review to come...