Book Review: THE AMERICAN AGENT

THE AMERICAN AGENT – (A Maisie Dobbs Novel #15)
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins
@HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Winspear
ISBN: 978-0-06-243666-5; hardcover (March 26, 2019)
384pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

The American Agent is the new novel from author Jacqueline Winspear.  It is the 15th novel in the series starring “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs, a former British nurse whose adventures begin during World War I and continue into the decades that follow.  The American Agent finds Maisie investigating the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the beginning of the Bltiz.

The American Agent opens on September 10, 1940.  It is the time of the “Blitz,” when Nazi Germany unleashes the full terror of its blitzkrieg upon the British Isles.  During this period of intense bombing, German bombers and the Luftwaffe rain death and destruction from the skies on London and other British cities.

Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe and on the Blitz from London, is found murdered in her London apartment.  News of her death is concealed by British authorities, because of the sensitivity of Ms. Saxon's work and because of her position as the daughter of an influential and powerful United States senator.  Robert MacFarlane, who is acting as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the American Secret Service, asks Maisie Dobbs to investigate the murder of Catherine.  MacFarlane also asks Maisie to work with Mark Scott, an agent from the U.S. Department of Justice.  Scott is also “the American agent” who helped Maisie escape from Hitler’s Germany in 1938 (as seen in the 2016 novel, Journey to Munich).

In addition to this case, Maisie is a volunteer with the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service with her dear friend, Priscilla Partridge, helping to rescue people after the German bombs have done their damage.  With all this going on, Maisie must also protect Anna Mason, the young evacuee girl she has grown to love and wants to adopt.  Soon, Maisie must go before the Ministry of Health and seek its approval for her to adopt the six-year-old girl, but Maisie worries that she will not be approved to be the child's mother.  Maisie also faces losing her dearest friend.  She finds herself entangled in a murder investigation linked to the power of wartime propaganda and to American political intrigue.  And now, Maisie, a widow, must also face the possibility that she might be falling in love again.

The American Agent is the fourth Maisie Dobbs novel that I have read.  It is also the third novel in the series that is set during Great Britain's involvement in World War II, going back to 2017's In This Grave Hour, which introduced Anna Mason, the girl Maisie wants to adopt.

I thought 2018's To Die But Once was the most personal Maisie Dobbs novel I had read.  By “personal,” I mean that of the Maisie novels I had read up to that time, it seemed the most linked to Maisie's connection to her family, to her in-laws, and to her dear fiend, Priscilla Partridge, and her husband and three sons, who are practically Maisie's family, also.

The American Agent is also deeply personal, but I find that in this novel, Jacqueline Winspear focuses on the character of Maisie Dobbs.  The case of the murder of Catherine Saxon, including the late young woman's history, career, ambitions, and her complicated family relationships bring out Maisie Dobbs ethical approach to investigation, which includes her desire to heal many of the people involved in a case.  In turn, Winspear uses the case to reveal the internal workings of Maisie as she deals with the life-threatening injury to a friend and comes to understand how her life and that of Anna's will change with the decision on whether Maisie can adopt the child or not.  And we get to see the process of Maisie falling in love in spite of herself.

Jacqueline Winspear makes The American Agent a riveting character study of a wonderful character whom readers cannot help but love.  As always, Winspear authors a novel that ends in a way that has us eagerly awaiting the next installment.  Thus, The American Agent is a winning novel, and it turns out to be a perfect starting point for new readers.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: TO DIE BUT ONCE (Maisie Dobbs)

TO DIE BUT ONCE
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins @HarperBook

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Winspear
ISBN: 978-0-06-243663-4; hardcover (March 27, 2018)
336pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

To Die But Once is a 2018 novel from author Jacqueline Winspear.  It is the 14th novel in the series starring “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs, a former British nurse whose adventures begin during World War I and continue in the decades that follow.  To Die But Once finds Maisie investigating the disappearance of a teenage apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract, while Great Britain prepares for an attack from Germany following Britain's declaration of war.

To Die But Once opens in May 1940.  It is spring and the worries of a nation at war blooms as much as,  if not more than the flowers of the new season.  A neighbor of Maisie's, Phil Combes, the landlord of a pub, visits her and asks the respected investigator to look into the disappearance of his 15-year-old son, Joseph Combes.  Young Joe is an apprentice of a painting concern, Yates & Sons, which has gained a government contract to go about the countryside and paint a special fire retardant chemical on important and strategic governmental and military buildings.

Maisie's investigation takes her from the London underworld to the countryside of rural Hampshire (a county on the southern coast of England).  There she will find wartime opportunism and the biggest banking institutions, reminders that money and war are inextricably linked.  Meanwhile, the son of Maisie's closest and dearest friend makes a monumental decision, one that will affect him and his family forever.  Meanwhile, Great Britain worries as word reaches British shores that her fighting young men and women are stranded on a beach in Dunkirk, France.

To Die But Once is the third Maisie Dobbs novel that I have read.  It seems like it is the most personal, and while the central mystery is quite engaging, the novel grapples with so much more.  To Die But Once is a story of the family ties, those family ties that bind, family obligations, the burden of a family legacy, and the creation of a family outside of blood ties.

To Die But Once is at once poignant and then, absolutely thrilling.  I found myself tearing through the book to discover whodunit, but I was eager for the twists and turns of the family melodrama.  Not to mention, but I must mention:  To Die But Once is also a rousing story of Great Britain coming together in the early months of its war with Germany, and it is also a recollection of how the people of the United Kingdom worried about their boys trapped at Dunkirk.

The previous novel, In This Grave Hour, was a straightforward murder mystery, although the novel dealt with themes concerning families.  To Die But Once is a straightforward family drama, period piece, and historical novel, but it also offers some of Maisie Dobbs' most wily moves as an investigator.  To Die But Once is every bit the great read that In This Grave Hour was, and at times, for me, it surpassed anything of Jacqueline Winspear's that I had read prior to it.  So I eagerly await the return of Winspear and her first lady of period mystery, Maisie Dobbs.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: IN THIS GRAVE HOUR

IN THIS GRAVE HOUR
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Winspear
ISBN: 978-0-06-243660-3; hardcover (March 14, 2017)
352pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

In This Grave Hour is a 2017 novel from author Jacqueline Winspear.  It is the 13th novel in the series starring “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs, a British nurse whose adventures take place during World War I and in the decades that follow.  In this Grave Hour opens as Britain declares war on Nazi Germany and follows Maisie as she tries to solve a murder mystery with ties to World War I more than two decades earlier.

In This Grave Hour finds Maisie Dobbs leaving her garden flat and headed to the mansion home of her dear friend, Priscilla Partridge, and her family (who are like family to Maisie).  It is Sunday, September 3rd 1939, and Maisie is gathering with the Partridges to hear a radio broadcast of a momentous speech from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.  Britain is declaring war against Adolf Hitler's Germany.

Meanwhile, a senior Secret Service agent and longtime acquaintance of Maisie Dobbs, Dr. Francesca Thomas, has broken into Maisie Dobbs' flat to await her return.  Dr. Francesca Thomas has an urgent assignment for Maisie.  She wants Maisie to find the killer of Frederick Addens, a man who escaped German occupied Belgium (Francesca's native country) as a teen boy, some twenty-three years earlier during the Great War (WWI).  Maisie and her employees, Billy Beale and Sandra Pickering, begin the investigation in a London on war footing.  Barrage balloons shadow the city, and children are evacuated out of London and into the countryside.  There are few if any leads in the case, which seems to be stalked by the threat of more murders to come.

While she investigates the case of Addens, Maisie learns that her father, Frankie Dobbs, and her stepmother, Brenda, are billeting a little girl, Anna, in Maisie's home in Kent.  The little girl does not speak, and it is unknown if she cannot or simply will not.  Also, no one seems to know who put the child on the evacuee train before it left London.

I was vaguely familiar with the Maisie Dobbs novels when I was a member of a “book-of-the-month” club.  I found the first Maisie novel I read, last year's Journey to Munich, a bit difficult to categorize, but it was quite an enjoyable read.  The middle-aged Maisie Dobbs does not seem like the typical secret agent, and that is more or less what she is as she journeys to Munich on what is more or less a rescue mission.

In This Grave Hour is a straightforward murder mystery, although the novel deals with themes concerning family, such as the longing to have children and parent-child relationships.  Much of the novel also concerns the evacuation of London and the preparation for war in the early days of Britain's declaration of war against Germany (although I think it was another year after Neville Chamberlain's speech before Germany launched an air raid on Britain).

In This Grave Hour is such a riveting and damn-good read because everything about it engages the reader.  Although the killer of Frederick Addens is not revealed until the last chapter (Chapter 19), the reason for the murder (that it is tied to a specific time and event in the past) is fairly obvious.  Still, getting to the resolution allows the readers to experience a wave of powerful emotions tied to themes of regret and sorrow, which actually makes for good reading.

The story of the little girl Anna is poignant and heartbreaking, and tugs on those old heart-strings when there is a sign of a positive ending.  The war-preparation subplots are also grabbing, especially the ones that involve the children of Maisie's friends who are enlisting for some kind of military service.

I liked Journey to Munich, but In This Grave Hour easily surpasses it.  This is some fucking good storytelling on the part of author, Jacqueline Winspear.  I can't wait for the next Maisie Dobbs novel.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: JOURNEY TO MUNICH

JOURNEY TO MUNICH
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Winspear
ISBN: 978-0-06-222060-8; hardcover (March 29, 2016)
320pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

Journey to Munich is a 2016 suspense and spy novel from author Jacqueline Winspear.  It is the 12th novel in the series starring “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs, a British nurse whose adventures take place during World War I and in the decades that follow.  Journey to Munich is set in early 1938 and finds Maisie on a mission in Hitler's Germany for the British Secret Service.

Journey to Munich opens in Holland Park, London, February 1938.  Maisie Dobbs is back in England and is still mourning her late husband, James Compton.  She struggles to find her place in life and to decide what her plans are.  Brian Huntley and Robert MacFarlane of the British Secret Service, however, just so happen to have plans for Maisie.

The German government has agreed to release Leon Donat, a British subject that it has imprisoned.  An industrialist and inventor, Donat is highly coveted by the British government because they see him as important if Britain has to go to war.  Germany has apparently imprisoned Donat in Dachau, and they will only release him to a family member.  However, Donat's daughter and only child, Edwina Donat, is seriously ill, and his wife is deceased.  Huntley and MacFarlane want Maisie, who bears a striking resemblance to Edwina, to go undercover as the daughter and to travel to Munich where she will retrieve Donat from Dachau, on the outskirts of Munich.

Traveling into the heart of Nazi Germany, Maisie faces unexpected dangers and finds herself on a second mission.  John Otterburn, the man whom Maisie holds responsible for her husband's death, asks her to find his estranged daughter, Elaine.  It is an additional mission that will take Maisie deeper into the darkness that is Hitler's Germany.

I think that Journey to Munich can be a bit difficult to categorize because the middle-aged Maisie Dobbs does not seem like the typical secret agent.  Her age or physical appearance does not preclude her from being a spy, though.  This is also the first Maisie Dobbs novel that I have read, although I first  heard of the series several years ago.

Journey to Munich blends the spy/secret agent genre with the historical drama.  In some ways, I guess that the best way to describe Journey to Munich is as an old-fashioned novel of intrigue and suspense.  The hero enters the belly of the best, the heart of darkness, the evil empire – in this instance, Hitler's Germany of the late 1930s.

When you think of the novel that way, Journey to Munich is a fantastic read.  The almost-wartime thriller offers intrigue on the razor's edge, but that is balanced by philosophical musings on time, love, and loss.  This narrative has an appreciation for freedom, something many of us take for granted.  After everything that happens, Maisie learns that she is lucky to have freedom, so she should use it.  As good as the intrigue and suspense is, this appreciation for loved ones and for freedom is a cherry on top that makes me want to read more Maisie Dobbs.


A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a "I Reads You"

The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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