The White Lady

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear is another example of her amazing storytelling! If you don't yet know her work, seek it out today at your local bookstore or library.

Elinor White was born in Belgium. She was ten when the Germans invaded. Her father left to join the army. Elinor, along with her older sister and mother were just moments late to escape by train. Now they will try to ride out the war without being noticed by the soldiers. 

Then one day Isabelle comes to their door. She wants the three of them to go on a picnic above the train tracks. And while there count the number of trains and their details. The Germans will likely overlook three women on a hill trying to make the most of the day.

In 1947, Elinor is now living in an estate in the English countryside - in a home given to her for her service as a spy in both world wars. She keeps to herself. But when she sees the young couple down the lane being harassed by to men from London, she feels the need to get involved.

Winspear's words will pull you in within the first page and take you on a thoughtful, suspenseful read. She is one of my favorite authors. 

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2022). The White Lady. New York: Harper. 

A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs #17)

A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear is her seventeenth book featuring detective and psychologist Maisie Dobbs. 

October 1942. ATA pilots ferry planes to bases and around the United Kingdom. These female pilots make sure the planes are where they need to be for the male pilots to use on bombing runs.

Jo Hardy is shot at while ferrying a plane to Biggin Hill. A friend a is later shot down in the same location. When Jo drives back to the area to investigate, she finds a US soldier tied up in an old barn. 

Hardy hires Maisie to find out who is shooting at the planes and why. When Maisie needs to interview the US soldier, she runs into both US bureaucracy and racism, as well as her husband's job. 

Maisie Dobbs is probably my favorite fictional character! Winspear is a wonderful writer who fills her books with accurate history, fully formed characters, intrigue and a real sense of being there. If you are a fan of history, mystery or just good writing, buy the first book in series today.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2022). A Sunlit Weapon. New York: Harper.

The Consequences of Fear (Maisie Dobbs #16)

The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear is her sixteenth book featuring the amazing Maisie Dobbs, private detective and psychologist. London, October 1941.

Freddie Hackett, a boy who runs messages through the blackout, witnesses a murder during a bombing raid. He then delivers his message to the same man he saw stab someone.

When the police do not believe him, Freddie goes to Maisie Dobb's office. He has run messages for her for her war work and knows she solves crimes. 

Winspear is a masterful writer whose research (including within her family history) makes for scenes in which you can feel the bombs drop. If you like mystery, historical fiction or just damn well written books, read this series. 

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2021). The Consequences of Fear. New York: Harper. 

The American Agent (Maisie Dobbs #15)

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear is the 15th book in her mystery series featuring Maisie Dobbs - an investigator and psychologist.

Maisie is asked to investigate the murder of an American reporter, Catherine Saxon. One of Edward R Murrow's reporters sending news back to the US from England during World War II.

The last article Saxon wrote was about British volunteers - after spending the night with Maisie and her best friend Priscilla - driving an ambulance through an attack by German planes.

Winspear's Maisie Dobbs is one of the best fictional characters written. She should be listed on all lists of classics. If you are not yet reading this series, start today!

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2019). The American Agent. New York: Harper.

To Die But Once (Maisie Dobbs 14)

To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear is the fourteenth book in the Maisie Dobbs series - an historical mystery series featuring a psychologist and private investigator in London.

It is 1940 and the British Army is being forced out of France by the invading Nazis. In the UK, children who have been evacuated to the country are trickling home as no bombs have (yet) been dropped on London. Young men and women are working for the war effort.

Maisie's neighbors come to her about their son Joe. He is working with a painting crew on a government contract, painting on the Air Force bases in the South. But he has not called. They are worried. He is not the kind of young man who would worry his family on purpose.

Maisie's investigation will reveal an underworld connection - someone making a profit while putting the soldiers at risk.

Winspear captures the time period and the tensions, worries and fear that plague a society at war - and on the brink of invasion. Her characters are well created and her stories based on family tales of the wars. For anyone who likes to read, this series is a must.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2018). To Die But Once. New York: Harper.

In This Grave Hour (Maisie Dobbs #13)

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear is the thirteenth book in her Maisie Dobbs series. Maisie is an investigator and psychologist.  This may be my favorite book series.

September 3rd, 1939 England declared war against Germany. When Maisie returns home from her best friend’s house where they listened to the radio announcement from the king, a Doctor Thomas is waiting for her. Maisie knows her to be a spy. Dr. Thomas wants Maisie to investigate the death of a Belgian. England took in many Belgian refugees during WWI. Some of them stayed. But the attitude toward other cultures within England has changed since the war started. Dr. Thomas is concerned that the police are not looking in the right place, if at all. Maisie takes the case.

At the same time, operation Pied Piper is put into effect. Children in London, a city likely to be bombed by the Nazis, are being evacuated to the countryside. Maisie’s estate has gotten three children. Her father is going to get the two boys working with horses. But the small girl who doesn’t speak is a mystery. She came without any paperwork. None of the other children know where she came from.

Winspear is a brilliant writer. Her books will grab you from the first page. Plus, if you listen to the firstbook on audiobook read by Rita Barrington will put the wonderful accents in your head for the rest of the series!

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2017). In This Grave Hour. New York: Harper.

Journey to Munich (Maisie Dobbs #12)

Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear is the twelfth book in her historical mystery series featuring Maisie Dobbs.

It is 1938. Maisie Dobbs is back in London after time spent in Spain, once again being a nurse in a war. She is still recovering from a personal loss. When she returns to London, she is not sure where she belongs. Her old flat is rented out and her house has too many memories. She finds herself walking toward her old office when she encounters a man with whom she used to work.

Robert MacFarlane is no longer with Scotland Yard. He now works for the Secret Service. And he has a job for which he needs Maisie's help. Having no plans of her own, Maisie agrees to a meeting.

The German government has been holding a British man in one of their prisons - at Dachau. They have agreed to release him, but only to a relative. Unfortunately, the man's only relative - his daughter - is not well enough to travel. And she does (slightly) resemble Maisie. The man is a boffin, or engineer, and England needs him for the likely war with Germany. Luckily, the Germans do not know how valuable an asset they have captured.

Maisie will come in contact with the Nazi machine, in a city cowed by fear. On top of her assignment, she will be asked by a family friend to look in on his daughter who is rumored to be in Munich, and ask her to come home - a request that will put Maisie in more danger as she is going not as herself but as Edwina Donat.

Winspear is an amazing writer. Of the one hundred plus books I read each year, this is one of my favorite series. Maisie Dobbs is one of the best protagonists in fiction. Read this series from the beginning. Read it now! Go on, run to your library or bookstore and get started!

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2016). Journey to Munich. New York: Harper.

A Dangerous Place (Maisie Dobbs #11)

A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear is the eleventh book in her Maisie Dobbs historical mystery series.

Maisie is a psychologist and detective but has taken time off of work to focus on other parts of her life. Continuing the story after four years, Winspear catches up readers with letters describing what Maisie has been doing and leaves us up to date to begin the new mystery.

Returning from India to England at the request of her father's wife, Maisie leaves her ship in Gibraltar - unable to going home. Much has changed in her life in four years and she is not ready to face the memories that await her.

In Gibraltar, Maisie discovers the body of a photographer. As is her nature, she decides to find out what happened to him - was it a senseless killing by a refugee from the Spanish Civil War who fled across the boarder seeking safety? Was he killed because he was Jewish? Or was being silenced?

Maisie is one of the best characters ever written. She is an intelligent woman who found her own place in spite of the societal rules of her time that limited women. In this volume, she confronts much of her past and uses a case to make peace with her past so she can move on. Winspear is a brilliant writer who everyone should read. If you haven't started this series, buy Maisie Dobbs today!

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2015). A Dangerous Place. New York: Harper.

Leaving Everything Most Loved (Maisie Dobbs #10)

Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear is the tenth book in her Maisie Dobbs series about a private detective and psychologist in early 1900s London. The Maisie Dobbs series is wonderful and all mystery and historical fiction readers will love it.

Usha Pramal left India with the British family she worked for as a governess. But a couple of months ago, someone murdered her. Scotland Yard made little progress in the case guessing it may have been racially motivated. When Usha's brother came to London a mutual friend recommended Maisie to look into the matter.

It seems that Usha Pramal was no longer living with the family that brought her to England. She was living in a hostel with other Indian women who had come over as nannies. It appeared she was trying to earn enough wage cleaning homes to pay her way back to India. But there is always more to a story and Maisie's quest for the truth will lead her many places and possibly create a wanderlust that makes her want to travel to India herself.

Winspear does an amazing job of combining a great mystery and a historically accurate time frame. In 1934 there were already those in England keeping an eye on Germany and preparing to do their part to protect their country if the hints of Hitler's plan were accurate. These and other elements allow the Maisie Dobbs novels to suck readers in and capture them completely. Read this series!

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2013). Leaving Everything Most Loved. New York: Harper.

Elegy for Eddie (Maisie Dobbs #9)

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear is the ninth book in her Maisie Dobbs series - an historical mystery series set in London in the early twentieth century.

When a group of costermongers (vegetable sellers) who used to work with Maisie's father come to tell her of the death of Eddie Pettit, Maisie begins an investigation close to her heart. She has known Eddie most of her life. He was the gentle giant who had a gift with horses.

Now Eddie is dead - killed in an accident in a newspaper factory. The costermongers do not think it was an accident. They are sure that someone had it in for Eddie.

Winspear delights readers with the latest installment of the Maisie Dobbs series. These books are always engaging, historically accurate and filled with compelling characters.

As a prolific reader it is hard to say who is my favorite author or which series is my absolute favorite, but I can say that the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear is in the top five...maybe the top three.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2012). Elegy for Eddie. New York: Harper.

A Lesson in Secrets (Maisie Dobbs #8)

A Lesson in Secrets is the eighth book in Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series.

It is now 1932 and Maisie's career is taking a turn - she will be asked to work for Special Branch in an investigation. Maisie will go undercover as a lecturer at a private college in Cambridge.

Shortly after she arrives at the college, her assignment takes another turn - the founder and president of the college is murdered. Though it is not part of Maisie's job, she does what she can to find out the circumstance surrounding the death.

Winspear's books are a delight to read. Maisie is a brilliant character in an interesting time in history. Start with the first book and read them all! Or listen to the unabridged audiobook versions read by Kim Hicks.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2011). A Lesson in Secrets. New York: HarperCollins.

The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs #7)

The Mapping of Love and Death is the seventh book in the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.

Maisie Dobbs is an investigator and psychologist in early 20th century London. In her current case, the body of an American mapmaker is discovered in a farmer's field in France - along with the rest of the group of surveyors - who died in the Great War. A packet of letters with his body makes his parents think that there was a woman who knew him during the war. They would like to find her to hear stories of the last months of their son's life.

When Michael Clifton's parents travel to London to engage Maisie, the information they bring sets her on a path that will follow the life of Michael Clifton from the land he purchased in California to his decision to enlist in the British army as a mapmaker to his time in France when he met a woman with whom he fell in love.

During the course of her investigation, Maisie must endure the passing of her mentor - the man who guided her education and career from the time she was a maid in the house of Lord Compton. And for the first time since the Great War Maisie will find herself falling in love.

Winspear weaves a great mystery surrounded by changes in Maisie Dobbs - a character fans have fell in love with six books ago. Dobbs is a compassionate, loving woman with insight that most of us do not gain in our lives. And it is a joy to continue to read of her live in Winspear's books.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2010). The Mapping of Love and Death. New York: HarperCollins.

Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6)

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear is the sixth book featuring Maisie Dobbs - an investigator and psychologist in England in the early 1900s.

Ms. Dobbs has had a successful investigative practice for a time now and is doing well even though England is in an economic depression. As she and her assistant, Billy Beale, are walking to a meeting to close up the paperwork on a case, Maisie sees a war veteran sitting on the walkway. As she approaches she knows something is wrong and sends Billy back. Seconds later the man kills himself using a grenade and Maisie is thrown across the street by the blast.

Later that afternoon she is seconded to Scotland Yard's Special Branch to find a man who may be connected to the death. A man who letter informs the Prime Minister that if the government does not start taking care of the men who risked their lives and sanity to defend England in WWI, he will retaliate. They have 48 hours.

Maisie will need all of her vast powers of deduction and reason to find the man who is so desperately wounded from the war that he would kill others to make a point. In this series that any Agatha Christie fans will adore, Winspear ups the ante with this volume. It is a must read (but start at the first book so you can meet Maisie as a youngster.)

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2009). Among the Mad. New York: Henry Holt Co.

An Incomplete Revenge (Maisie Dobbs #5)

An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear is the fifth Maisie Dobbs book. The series has a similar feel to Agatha Christie mysteries and takes place in England in the early 1900s.

When Maisie is asked to look at the village surrounding a farm that may be purchased by the Compton Corporation, she thinks is will be a fairly straight forward assignment.

It so happens that her assistant, Billy Beale, and his family go to that very village in Kent each hops-picking season. She plans to meet him there and instead of a quiet village, finds a web of lies and arson that seems to encompass the whole town.

The dynamic of the town, changed by the arrival of pickers from London as well as a group of Roma (Gypsies), is private and suspicious of outsiders. It seems the villagers never go over a Zeppelin attack during the war.

Winspear writes a great story that winds its way through layer after layer of mystery as Dobbs reconstructs what happened in the village - something that could make even the vicar lie about the past.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2008). An Incomplete Revenge. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
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Messenger of Truth (Maisie Dobbs #4)

Messenger of Truth is the fourth Maisie Dobbs book by Jacqueline Winspear.

Maisie Dobbs has been hired to look into the death of the artist Nicholas Bassington-Hope, a well known artist who fell to his death off of scaffolding he was using to set up his latest exhibition.

His sister, Georgina, has hired Maisie to find out if he was murdered. Through her usual careful investigating, Maisie pieces together the last few weeks of Nick's life.

What she finds is a talented and troubled painter who final piece (that is currently missing) may have been his masterpiece and his view of the Great War - a piece that many would not want to be seen.

Maisie Dobbs' books will appeal to any mystery lovers or those who like Agatha Christie or Mrs. Pollifax. Winspear captures early 1900s England and create engaging stories that twist and turn to a satisfying ending.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2006). Messenger of Truth. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Pardonable Lies (Maisie Dobbs #3)

Pardonable Lies is the third book featuring Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear.

Maisie has already proven herself as a detective who can find out what others fail to prove and she always does in ways that her clients can live with. She makes sure that her reports have as little negative impact as possible.

Now along with her role as a detective, she is helping out Scotland Yard with a case about a young girl who may have killed her uncle. Maise sees herself in the young girl and is determined that the girl will not spend the rest of life behind bars.

Her current detective case is to find out what happened to a pilot killed in the war (WWI). She has not been back to France since she was wounded during an attack on her medical center. Her trip is sure to drag up the past - a past she has tried to forget.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2005). Pardonable Lies. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Birds of a Feather (Maisie Dobbs #2)

Birds of a Feather is the second book in Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mystery series.

Maisie Dobbs is a classic detective in the early 1900s in London. In this second book, Maisie and her assistant Billy are hired to find a runaway daughter - Charlotte Waite.

Once they start looking for Charlotte, Maisie and Billy notice that three of her friends have recently died - two apparently murdered by the same person.

Ms. Dobbs must find out what the four women have in common other than attending school together before the war. Why after all of these years are they apparently being targeted by someone. And where is Charlotte Waite? Is she in hiding or is she the killer?

For anyone interested, the audio book version read by Kim Hicks in a series of brilliant British accents.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2004). Birds of a Feather. New York: Pengiun.

Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1)

Maisie Dobbs, created by Jacqueline Winspear, is a detective to rival Agatha Christie!

Maisie, who grew up on the south side of the Thames, has just lost her mother. Her father is consumed with grief and worried about money (the savings for Maisie's schooling spend on trying desperately to save her mother). When he suggests that she take a position in the house of Lord and Lady Compton, Maisie becomes a maid.

Lady Rowan Compton, encouraged by her friend Dr. Maurice Blanche, see that Maisie continues her studies. She learns enough to be accepted at Cambridge. When the Great War begins and England needs more nurses to tend to the injured young soldiers, Maisie volunteers and is sent to France.

Ten years later, in 1929, Maisie has just opened her own detective agency. Her first assignment seems to be an open and shut case of infidelity, but all is not as it seems on the surface. Before the case is solved, other questions will arise that will lead Maisie back to emotions she thought she left behind at the end of the war.

Jacqueline Winspear was awarded or nominated for four awards for Maisie Dobbs - her first novel. She is a writer who captures the interest of readers and doesn't release them until long after the last page.

Winspear, Jacqueline. (2003). Maisie Dobbs. New York: Penguin Books.