History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Release Date: 2010 Pages: 319 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: In the thrilling new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of An Incomplete Revenge , Maisie Dobbs must catch a madman before he commits murder on an unimaginable scale.      It's Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister's office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Maisie by name. After being questioned and cleared by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard's elite Special Branch, she is drawn into MacFarlane's personal fiefdom as a special adviser on the case. Meanwhile, Billy Beale, Maisie's trusted assistant, is once again facing tragedy as his...

An Incomplete Revenge (Maisie Dobbs #5) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Release Date: 2010 Pages: 319 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: In her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs, the extraordinary Psychologist and Investigator, delves into a strange series of crimes in a small rural community.      With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work. As Maisie discovers, the villagers are bitterly prejudiced against ou...

Messenger of Truth (Maisie Dobbs #4) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Release Date: 2010 Pages: 337 Source: My State Public Library  Synopsis: Maisie Dobbs investigates the mysterious death of a controversial artist—and World War I veteran—in the fourth entry in the bestselling series. London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nick's twin sister, Georgina, a wartime journalist and a infamous figure in her own right, isn't convinced. When the authorities refuse to consider her theory that Nick was murdered, Georgina seeks out a fellow graduate from Girton College, Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, for help. Nick was a veteran of World War I, and before long the case leads Maisie to the desolate beaches of Dungeness in Kent, and into the sinister u...

Pardonable Lies (Maisie Dobbs #3) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery  Publisher: Picador Release Date: 2006 Pages: 384 Source: My State Public Library  Synopsis: London 1930, psychologist investigator Maisie Dobbs must prove Sir Cedric's aviator son Ralph Lawton died when shot down in 1917. In former battlefields of France, she re-unites with Priscilla Evernden, one of whose three brothers lost in the War is somehow connected. The case tests Maisie's spiritual strength and her regard for mentor Maurice Blanche.      My Review: Maisie Dobbs is hired by Sir Cedric to find evidence that his son, Ralph Lawton, has been killed in the war. The case leads her to France, where her best friend Priscilla also asks her to find her brother’s lost grave. As Maisie journeys to France, she finds that the two cases are connected. As she delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding these two lost soldiers, Maisie begins to question her ment...

A Lesson in Secrets (Maisie Dobbs #8) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Mystery Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2011 Pages:  477 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs’ career goes in an exciting new direction when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities “not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government.”       When the college’s controversial pacifist founder and principal, Greville Liddicote, is murdered, Maisie is directed to stand back as Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane and Detective Chief Inspector Stratton spearhead the investigation. She soon discovers, however, that the circumstances of Liddicote’s death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty and students under her surveilla...

Birds of a Feather (Maisie Dobbs #2) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Mystery Publisher: Soho Crime Release Date: 2004 Pages:  321 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: The second Maisie Dobbs mystery      Jacqueline Winspear’s marvelous debut, Maisie Dobbs , won her fans from around the world and raised her intuitive, intelligent, and resourceful heroine to the ranks of literature’s favorite sleuths. Birds of a Feather , its follow-up, finds psychologist and private investigator Maisie Dobbs on another dangerously intriguing adventure in London “between the wars.” It is the spring of 1930, and Maisie has been hired to find a runaway heiress. But what seems a simple case at the outset soon becomes increasingly complicated when three of the heiress’s old friends are found dead. Is there a connection between the woman’s mysterious disappearance and the murders? Who would want to kill three seemingly respectable young women? As Maisie investiga...

In This Grave Hour (Maisie Dobbs #13) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: March 14, 2017 Pages: 398 Source: Publisher in exchange for an honest review Synopsis:  Sunday September 3rd 1939.  At the moment Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts to the nation Britain’s declaration of war with Germany, a senior Secret Service agent breaks into Maisie Dobbs' flat to await her return. Dr. Francesca Thomas has an urgent assignment for Maisie: to find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some twenty-three years earlier during the Great War.       In a London shadowed by barrage balloons, bomb shelters and the threat of invasion, within days another former Belgian refugee is found murdered.  And as Maisie delves deeper into the killings of the dispossessed from the “last war," a new kind of refugee — an evacuee from London — appears in Maisie's life. The little gi...

Journey to Munich (Maisie Dobbs #12) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2016 Pages: 309 Source: Edelweiss/Publisher in exchange for an honest review Synopsis: Working with the British Secret Service on an undercover mission, Maisie Dobbs is sent to Hitler’s Germany in this thrilling tale of danger and intrigue—the twelfth novel in Jacqueline Winspear’s New York Times bestselling “series that seems to get better with each entry” ( Wall Street Journal ).      It’s early 1938, and Maisie Dobbs is back in England. On a fine yet chilly morning, as she walks towards Fitzroy Square—a place of many memories—she is intercepted by Brian Huntley and Robert MacFarlane of the Secret Service. The German government has agreed to release a British subject from prison, but only if he is handed over to a family member. Because the man’s wife is bedridden and his daughter has been killed in an accident, the Secret ...

Elegy for Eddie (Maisie Dobbs #9) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2012 Pages: 467 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: In this latest entry in Jacqueline Winspear’s acclaimed, bestselling mystery series—“less whodunits than why-dunits, more P.D. James than Agatha Christie” ( USA Today )—Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet, a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power. Perfect for fans of A Lesson in Secrets , The Mapping of Love and Death , or other Maisie Dobbs mysteries—and an ideal place for new readers to enter the series— Elegy for Eddie is an incomparable work of intrigue and ingenuity, full of intimate descriptions and beautifully painted scenes from between the World Wars, from one of the most highly acclaimed masters of mystery, Jacqueline Winspear....

Leaving Everything Most Loved (Maisie Dobbs #10) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery  Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2013 Pages: 357 Source: This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: In Leaving Everything Most Loved by New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs investigates the murder of Indian immigrants in London. The year is 1933. Maisie Dobbs is contacted by an Indian gentleman who has come to England in the hopes of finding out who killed his sister two months ago. Scotland Yard failed to make any arrest in the case, and there is reason to believe they failed to conduct a thorough investigation. The case becomes even more challenging when another Indian woman is murdered just hours before a scheduled interview. Meanwhile, unfinished business from a previous case becomes a distraction, as does a new development in Maisie's personal life. Bringing a crucial chapte...

Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery  Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2003 Pages: 305 Source: Borrowed from my State Public Library Synopsis: "A female investigator every bit as brainy and battle-hardened as Lisbeth Salander."  —Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air, on Maisie Dobbs      Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan's friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts and helped her earn admission to the prestigious Girton College in Cambridge, where Maisie planned to complete her education.      The outbreak of war changed everything. Maisie trained as a nurse, then left for France to serve at the Front, where ...

The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs #7) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery Publisher: HarperCollins Release Date: 2010 Pages: 482 Source: This book was given to me by TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: In the New York Times bestselling series, Maisie Dobbs must unravel a case of wartime love and death—an investigation that leads her to a long-hidden affair between a young cartographer and a mysterious nurse.      August 1914. Michael Clifton is mapping the land he has just purchased in California's beautiful Santa Ynez Valley, certain that oil lies beneath its surface. But as the young cartographer prepares to return home to Boston, war is declared in Europe. Michael—the youngest son of an expatriate Englishman—puts duty first and sails for his father's native country to serve in the British army. Three years later, he is listed among those missing in action.      April 1932. London psyc...

A Dangerous Place (Maisie Dobbs #11) Author: Jacqueline Winspear Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystey Publisher: Harper Release Date: 2015 Pages: 320 Source: TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Four years after she set sail from England, leaving everything she most loved behind, Maisie Dobbs at last returns, only to find herself in a dangerous place . . .        In Jacqueline Winspear‘s  powerful story of political intrigue and personal tragedy, a brutal murder in the British garrison town of Gibraltar leads Maisie into a web of lies, deceit, and peril.      Spring 1937. In the four years since she left England, Maisie Dobbs has experienced love, contentment, stability—and the deepest tragedy a woman can endure. Now, all she wants is the peace she believes she might find by returning to India. But her sojourn in the hills of Darjeeling is cut short when her stepmother summons her home to England; her aging father Fra...