Book Review – Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs

Synopsis:

In 1929, Maisie Dobbs opens her own private investigation office in London, blending her skills as a psychologist with sharp deductive insight honed from humble beginnings. From a teenage maid in an aristocratic household, she rose through education, wartime nursing on the battlefields of France, and philosophical study under a brilliant mentor. Her first case appears straightforward—a wife’s concern over her husband’s secretive visits to a remote retreat for scarred veterans. This mystery novel explores the lingering shadows of World War I, then known as the Great War, on a resilient generation, through the eyes of an extraordinary woman.

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Review

When you read a mystery novel, I want to read about a smart person using their intellect and their life experiences to gather clues and solve the case. Masie Dobbs is a private detective that I enjoy because she does just that. She is trained in a classical manner after being caught reading books in the library of her employer. As a reader, that’s going to help win me over to her side. Maisie is kind and caring but she’s cunning in using her kindness.

I know it’s 2025, and calling any number of female protagonists “Mary Sue” is all the rage (while being enraged), but I can like girl detectives too! Maisie is no Mary Sue. Winspear writes her as a woman of her time (just after World War I) and she acts like a woman of the time but also of someone who had people mold her into a greater person she could be. She doesn’t hate men and it’s hard to remember if she even had a negative thing to say about a character, even if it was a man from a higher class who hired her, looking down on her.

Winspear does a phenomenal job of writing the story around the character development of Maisie. She starts out the story with the first mystery and then goes back after she had gathered her first big clue. While I’m not sure this worked as well as letting me know of a young girl who gets up early in the morning and gets caught reading books, it doesn’t hurt the story. Winspear’s well-paced character development follows an interesting plot of Maisie pausing her schooling to go help as a nurse in World War I. And here, again, we see Masie being a well-rounded and relatable character who develops feelings of love and loss and being slightly shell-shocked and still appreciates the men in his current day life who served and those of lesser status. Maisie grows on you as she grows with the world changing around her.

As to the overall mystery, I enjoyed it overall. However, I do believe the explanation of the who-dun-it tended to not be as believable with the revelation of a small details to the make up of the person who did it. This is a different take on the mystery plot than what you might be used to but grounded in the background of Maisie’s experience and the world she operates in.

I really enjoyed the book and enjoyed Maisie. I will continue the series but didn’t realise there were so bloody many of them! I also see that the Clinton’s have a hand in the development of the series for media, so hopefully no “accidents” happen. No need for Mary Sues here, I appreciated getting to know Maisie Dobbs.

Final Grade