Among the Mad

by Jacqueline Winspear

I became a fan of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries with the first book. This series is gently and intelligently written with close attention to the time period just after WWI.

Winspear has developed a likable character with the young Maisie. She's strong, independent and yet, ladylike and down-to-earth.

In my opinion, Among the Mad, is the best one yet.

Incomplete Revenge

by Jacqueline Winspear

Hooray! I'm caught up in one of the series I'm reading. It's astonishing that I've had this book for so long (over a year) and only just read it. I can't believe how time flies and gets away from us.

Winspear provides us with glimpse of the time period just after WWI. In England the class system is very much alive and so is hate and suspicion of unfamiliar groups of people. This book deals with a group of gypsys and the crimes they are suspected of committing in an English country village.

The Maisie Dobb's mysteries have a gentle pace but they are such good stories. Winspear brings together an interesting cast of characters and weaves an interesting tale of events that she brings together in a satisfactory conclusion. I love this series.

Pardonable Lies

by Jacqueline Winspear
This is book 3 in the series starting with Maisie Dobbs, followed by Birds of a Feather. I think the series gets better with each installment. Maisie is a former nurse who served in France during WWI. She has her dragons that are kept at bay through her hard work at her own detective agency, but in this book she is forced to face them as she travels to France on an assignment.

Pardonable Lies is set in England and France in 1930. Part of the magic of this series is that you feel like you are in the same time period while you are reading. Winspear captures the mood of the age through her description of fashion, decor, and through the dialogue spoken between the characters. You really get a sense of what is 'proper'.

Another reason I enjoy this series is the well-written, tightly woven mystery. Maisie works on 3 separate assignments in this story, but each provides insight that helps solve the others. On a more personal level they provide Maisie with important lessons in settling the past and moving on with her life.

Maisie mentor, Maurice, is present more in this book than the last two. At one point he gives Maisie the following advice: "(There is) the task that we are all sent to accomplish in each other's lives. It is a task of which we have no conscious awareness, but it is there all the same."

More advice from Maurice: "Consider your discomfort and welcome it as the ache necessary for you to become more deeply attuned."

Again, from Maurice: " As time passes we find that the clothes of the past do not fit, do not serve us anymore. As you grew, as you matured, the cloak of recovery ceased to coveryour pain, your guilt at survival."

I liked the imagery of this passage: Maisie turned her thoughts to her investigation, which was proceeding like liquid in a funnel, pouring toward an ever-narrowing point until captured in the cup below.

Just one more passage that caught my attention: Talk went back and forth in such a way that an observer might have been reminded of a tennis game on a summer's day, played not for a wager, or particularly to win, but for the pleasure of connection.

I felt pampered as I indulged myself in reading a mystery after so many months on classics and other pursuits. It was truly a pleasant pastime.