I love a good mystery. I am hooked on murder mysteries on BBC and love trying to figure out the mystery before it ends. As a reader of course I have to get some mystery books on my TBR lists. So I was so excited to find out about Maisie Dobbs.
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There is whole series and a serious fan base of these books. Don’t you just love to find a great book and then find out it’s in a series?
MAISIE DOBBS BY JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
We listened to this one on audiobook. The reader was fantastic and I felt she really pulled you in, especially the first few chapters of the book.
The book starts in 1929 and you meet Maisie Dobbs. She is a lady setting up her detective business and after being mentored by the wise Maurice Blanche she is ready to set out on her own. Her first case brings her a man who wants Maisie to find out if his wife is having an affair. There ends up being a mystery with his wife that has nothing to do with an affair and Maisie starts to look into it.
You think the main mystery will start and end with this situation but the book suddenly takes you back to 1910 to when Maisie is just a fourteen-year-old girl living with only her father after her mother’s death. They are a poor family but her father works very hard to provide.
So throughout the book, it takes you to two different stories. Some readers may not like that, you will see that in some of the reviews for the book, and although at first, I wasn’t a fan of it either it grew on me and I became very engrossed in both stories.
Although Maisie is poor, she is incredibly gifted with her intellect. After her employer who is very well to do and has much influence realizes this servant girl is incredibly intelligent she gets Maurice to take her on as a student. This changes her life forever.
It isn’t long and this part of the story takes us to WWI Maisie then becomes a nurse because she feels it is her duty to serve her country, however it is her work with Maurice before and after the war that makes her a great detective and this is where her true passion comes in.
She learns so much during the war chapters and so do you as a reader. I was amazed at the detail of not only the normal war things you would expect like battles that often caused death or disfigurements but also how the nurses had to check their bodies and clothes every day for lice and how they stayed warm during the night. There was so much detail and I know the author stayed true to real stories of war. It was during the war that Maisie falls in love with a handsome doctor.
To finish the review go to my new book blog Crazy Book Lady!
