The flash backs gave me a good sense of Maisie’s background, but I still don’t have a good sense of her personality. I’m looking forward to hopefully a more substantial mystery in book two of the series. And because there was so much back story, the mystery part was pretty light. I would have preferred to have that broken up and interspersed with the present day stuff more. The book starts by introducing the mystery but then cuts away to a really long section about Maisie’s personal history. I guess you should expect that from the first book in a series, but I think it could have been executed better. The novel was a little bit of mystery and a lot of back story. So the time period of the book was intriguing to me. Maisie represents both of these phenomena. Additionally, women were slowly gaining more freedoms, including expanded employment options. The barriers between social classes were being knocked down.

This particular time period was also one of significant social change. I don’t read many books with WWI as a backdrop. This aspect of the book was interesting to me. Additionally, the case she investigates involves war veterans who are struggling with PTSD as well as severe, disfiguring facial scars. As a nurse, she saw a lot of men die and saw many more horribly injured. World War One figures prominently in this book. Ten years later, she opens up her own detective agency. Maisie eventually attends Cambridge, but takes a leave of absence in order to serve as a battlefield nurse during World War One.

Maisie often draws on the lessons she learned from him while investigating cases. This education includes private tutoring from an enigmatic man who seems to be part spy, part zen master. Recognizing potential, Lady Rowan becomes Maisie’s patron and sponsors her education. As a teenager, she caught the eye of her employer, Lady Rowan, when Lady Rowan caught her reading philosophy in her home library. Although this first book had a few rough spots, it was interesting enough to make me want to read the next book in the series to see how things progress. The series, which recently added book number 15, features a British female sleuth who solves mysteries in the 1920s/1930s. Maisie Dobbs is the first book in Jacqueline Winspear’s successful Maisie Dobbs mystery series.

Maisie dobbs books in order