I think my greatest reading joy this year was discovering Maisie Dobbs, the ‘psychologist and investigator’ who survived service as a nurse on the Great War battlefields of France, only to be reminded of the horrors of the war as she undertakes cases involving other war veterans still suffering in its long aftermath.  I have read books 1-8 in the series, and I need to keep track of the storyline of each one.  The first book, Maisie Dobbs, made such a vivid impression on me that I still remember its details months after reading it.  I knew I had loved the other books in the series, but couldn’t match the stories and characters I remembered to their specific titles.  I had to turn to Amazon to jog my memory for each book, but once jogged, I managed to sort my impressions into useful, though compressed, order.

Throughout the series, the memories of the Great War smoothly and continuously inform the structure of the books.  I thought that Jacqueline Winspear would run out of the ideas and skill to keep incorporating details about the war into each book, but she does a wonderful job in developing different aspects for every story.  We visited Britain last July, after I was thoroughly immersed in the series, and I found that the many memorials to the dead of the Great War had a much deeper impact on me than before.  I was especially moved by the glorious Five Sisters stained glass window at York Cathedral, restored in honor of the nurses of the Great War.  I’d never particularly noticed such tributes to nurses, and all medical battlefield personnel, before reading Maisie Dobbs.

I’m sure I will reread these books at some point, and this post will provide a base for expanding on my thoughts.  I have been saving the last two books for special treats, but I just scored a great Cheap Kindle Book deal on Elegy for Eddie, the next one in the series ($2.99!) so this is definitely the time to start treating myself.

1. Maisie Dobbs:  In 1929, Maisie Dobbs starts a private investigation business on her own following the retirement of her partner and mentor Maurice Blanche.  As Maisie investigates her first case, centered on a mysterious grave marked only with the name Vincent, there are flashbacks to Maisie’s job as a maid, at age 13, in Lord and Lady Compton’s London mansion.  Flashbacks continue with accounts of Lady Rowan Compton’s discovery of Maisie’s eager intellectual curiosity, which leads to her education with Maurice Blanche and studies at Cambridge.  With the outbreak of the Great War, Maisie volunteers as a military nurse in France, where she meets up again with a dedicated young doctor she met in her Cambridge days.  Maisie’s experiences at medical stations just behind the battle lines are amazingly vivid and realistic, and establish the strength, intuition and compassion of her character with authority.  As Maisie’s investigation in 1929 progresses, she finds that Vincent had lived and died in the long shadow of the Great War, and the shadow awakens her own traumatic war memories, and those of her office assistant Billy Beale.  This book didn’t just capture my attention, it captured my heart.  Jacqueline Winspear’s grandfather lived through the Great War and the long shadow of its aftermath, and she must have breathed in the fear, melancholy and courage of the stories told by her family and their friends about that time, so that she could share them with readers in this incredible book.  (paperback)   
2. Birds of a Feather:  The feather of the title is the white feather left at each of the different murder scenes of three women.  Maisie is drawn into the murder inquiries after she accepts an assignment to find the missing daughter of a wealthy grocery tycoon.  Once again, the origins of the mystery lie in personal tragedies of the Great War.  (Kindle) 
3.  Pardonable Lies:  In the fall of 1930, Maisie reluctantly returns to France to determine the fate of a young aviator who disappeared during the war.  When her Cambridge friend Priscilla Evernden learns Maisie is coming to France, she asks Maisie to also look into the circumstances of her beloved brother’s death in the war.  Maisie’s fears that her return to France will bring back the horrors of her own war experiences come all too true, and she also learns some unwelcome truths about her mentor Maurice Blanche’s activities during the war.  (Kindle)
4. Messenger of Truth:  It’s 1931, and a former Cambridge classmate of Maisie’s asks her to investigate the death of her artist brother Nick Bassington-Hope.  The police determined that the death was the result of an accidental fall, but Georgina Bassington-Hope isn’t convinced.  Once again, the case draws Maisie back into the devastating consequences of the war for veterans like Nick.  As the memories of the war fade for the greater British population, a new menace, the economic devastation of the Great Depression takes hold, and Maisie is appalled at the deep divide between the hard hit working people and people like the eccentric Bassington-Hope family, whose members seem resolved to separate both Nick’s war memories and contemporary economic suffering from their sheltered lives.  The resolution of the investigation includes a foreshadowing of the coming second World War.   (Kindle)
5. An Incomplete Revenge:  The Comptons’ son James has returned to lead the family business, and asks Maisie to look into mysterious crimes taking place in a Kent village where he plans to make a major investment in land.  Maisie’s assistant Billy Beale, an increasingly important character in his own right, and his family come to Kent each year for the hop harvest, and he accepts an undercover assignment as Maisie’s eyes and ears in the village.  The conflict between  a group of gypsies Maisie befriends and the locals, who are harboring a deadly secret dating from the Great War, adds to the menace of the situation.  With the gypsies, Maisie finds wisdom and healing for some of her painful war memories, as well as a reconnection with her dead mother’s heritage.  I found her friendship with a gypsy dog, the lurcher Jook, a particularly poignant part of the story.  (Kindle)  
6. Among the Mad:  At Christmas time in 1931, Maisie is a horrified witness to the suicide of a severely disabled war veteran on a busy street.  As a witness, and then because of her reputation as a psychological investigator, she is drawn into an elite police force’s intense hunt for a deranged man who has threatened mass murder as retaliation for the suffering of forgotten veterans.  The threat becomes very real as mysterious deaths in London reveal the killer’s capabilities.  At the same time, Maisie’s assistant and friend Billy and his family are forced to contend with the hazards of treatments for the mentally ill in 1930s Britain.  Maisie’s connections with prominent members of the mental health profession are vital in the race to find the killer, and to help Billy’s family.   (Kindle)
7. The Mapping of Love and Death:  When a diary and love letters are found with the remains of an American cartographer killed on a battlefield of the Great War, his wealthy parents ask Maisie to locate the mysterious nurse their son loved.  Michael Clifton’s adventurous spirit and integrity and his work as a cartographer are described so well that the tragedy of his death is very real.  When Maisie begins to suspect that he may have been murdered instead of dying in combat, the amorality  and horror of the crime and the menacing presence of the killer are so strong I could feel it.  As Maisie works to find justice for Michael, she must also face the impending loss of her mentor Maurice Blanche and resolve her differences with him.  This book made the greatest impression on me since reading the original book in the series.   (library eBook)  
8. A Lesson in Secrets:  The British Secret Service assigns Maisie to work undercover as a junior lecturer at a college in Cambridge observing pacifist college members suspected of Communist sympathies.  The founder of the college, author of a pacifist children’s book banned during the Great War for reputedly inspiring soldiers to mutiny on the battlefield, is murdered soon after Maisie arrives.  As Maisie assists with the murder investigation, as well as her original assignment to uncover conspiracy, she discovers that a growing German/British Nazi group could be the real threat.  In London Sandra, another former housemaid in the Compton household, asks Maisie and Billy to investigate the suspicious death of her husband Eric in an accident at his job in a garage.  Eric’s death hits even harder because he was the Comptons’ former chauffeur and helped Maisie take care of the beloved MG she bought from Lady Rowan Compton in the first book in the series and has driven ever since.  While I found the spy and conspiracy plot in this book less than compelling, the prominence and further development of series characters like Billy, Priscilla, Sandra, Frankie and James was a spot-on delight.  (library eBook)    
9. Elegy for Eddie  (Kindle)
10. Leaving Everything Most Loved