Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobb’s is a private investigator in London in the late 1920’s. She is the daughter of a widowed costermonger (green grocer). He has her go into service as a maid at age 15. She is incredibly bright and the owners of the home invest in her education. When World War I breaks out she goes into the nursing service and spends a few years in France at the battlefront hospitals.

The investigation in this story is about ‘The Retreat’; a place where soldiers with facial injuries go to escape from their deformities.  When Maisie discovers the graves of several of these men, which only list their first names on the gravestones, she starts to feel that something is not quite right.  She goes on to uncover the mystery.

One of my friends in review of this book on Goodreads said, “This was a good story, just painfully slow.”  I would totally agree with this. Part of the slowness of the story, I think, comes in the middle half where the author interrupts the main story to go back and fill in Maise’s story.  Because of this, I will try the next book in the series.

3 stars (Rated PG – war violence)