Maisie Dobbs is a detective who is just beginning her own practice in post-WW I London. Her first case, a seemingly simple case of a jealous husband who is trying to figure out where his wife is going everyday while he’s at work, leads her to an investigation of much higher import. As she becomes more and more entrenched in her investigation, she also comes to terms with her own very traumatic past, her having overcome a humble beginning and her very difficult personal experience of the war.
What begins as an entertaining, almost innocent, story broadens very gradually into a very stark commentary on war and its horrible effects on those who survive it. With a subtle pen, Winspear writes a narrative of war that leaves the reader to draw the gorier details in the imagination. What does come through with stark clarity, however, is that whether or not survivors of war return with outer scars, there are almost always inner scars that some can work through and some cannot.
This book is engaging, romantic, suspenseful and beautifully written – I very highly recommend it!
kindread spirits 