Leaving Everything Most Loved LP: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Is this series really ending? Say it's not so. I was looking forward to Maisie being somehow involved in World War II, the beginning of which is overshadowed in the 10th mystery in this wonderful series.Winspear takes her usual thoughtful, methodical, slow approach to Maisie Dobbs' crime solving after Maisie is pulled in to investigate the murder of an Indian woman who seems to have been beloved by all who knew her. Red herrings abound, keeping the reader guessing to the end. It's not a quick read, but an absorbing one, as in this book, Maisie picks up where she was at the end of the last mystery: unsettled in her personal life, in love, but worried about sacrificing her hard-won professional status and individuality by marrying a wealthy upper class man. Lots of soul searching for our heroine, with which any woman weaned on feminism and "traditional" family values can identify. We also see conflicts and turning points among people in her circle: her loyal colleagues Billy and Sandra, her father, and James, her lover. Winspear again paints believably another chapter in British history: the post World War I tide of immigrants flooding London and the discrimination often accompanying their assimilation into British society, as well as the dark cloud of Nazism hovering ever so close.I hope Winspear visits Maisie after her new adventure.... and will some clever BBC producer please pick this up for TV? It is the new "Downtown Abbey." This is the finale of this series of Maisie Dobbs books. There is another book due sometime in 2015 that is set four years (1937) in the future which will presumably start a new series. I like the continuing characters in these books. While the mystery plots are probably not the most interesting I have encountered, one has to give the author credit for their variety. In most mysteries, problems between continuing characters are rooted in incidents in their past. While the past is always present in these books, Masie's reluctance to marry is based on her fear about what her life would be like in the future. It is a subject worth thinking about.
What do You think about Leaving Everything Most Loved LP: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (2013)?
Not the usual for this series, lower rating.
—Aurora
