First published in 2003 by Soho Crime
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.
I am going to be reviewing Messenger of Truth (book 4) later this month, so I wanted to start at the beginning of the series to get a frame of reference. I had mixed feeling about this book. The story takes place in the late 1930s. Maisie is a private investigator who is opening her own firm and takes on her first case. The case leads to secrets from her past.
I thought Maisie was a good character. I liked her independence and intellect. The major problem that I had with the book was the format. The story starts in the "present" with a mystery that soon to turns out to be more than it seemed at first. Then all of a sudden, the story goes back to Maisie at age 13 and tells us of her life up until the present. It's not like it's a short "flashback" It was as if there were two books in one. But the author couldn't make either long enough for a whole book, so she mashed them together. By the time I got back to the mystery, I just didn't care anymore. I ended up skimming to the end.
I hope that the 4th book is better than this one. Stay tuned for my review!
I've been reading this series for awhile and have found it pretty uneven. Some of the entries are quite good - others not so much. But overall, it is interesting, with relatable characters and a good sense of the era in which the events occur.
ReplyDelete