Maisie Dobbs is Back

Although I have been a lifelong reader of mysteries (see my 1/27/10 post), I have "gone off" mysteries a bit the past couple of years. However, the publication of a new Maisie Dobbs mystery, "The Mapping of Love and Death" (HarperCollins, 2010), by Jacqueline Winspear, lured me back to the world of mysteries. This novel, the seventh in a wonderful series, all of which I have read, is as compellingly readable as its predecessors; I read it in one day. The series is set in England, post-World War I. Maisie Dobbs came from poverty but was discovered to be unusually bright, and with support from some rich patrons, received an excellent education, served as a nurse during the war, and now has her own small detective agency. In this most recent story, she is asked by an American family to find out information about their son's last weeks before he died in France during the war, and about a woman he had met before his death. In the course of unraveling an ever more complicated mystery, Maisie also deals with large changes in her personal life. If you enjoy mysteries, and you haven't yet discovered Maisie Dobbs, I urge you to find and read these novels about her, preferably starting with the first one, titled simply "Maisie Dobbs." I am guessing you will then be hooked, and will have the pleasure of the next six novels in front of you! If you are, on the other hand, already a Maisie Dobbs fan, you probably don't need my urging to find and read this latest installment of her story.