John Cleal is a former soldier and journalist with an interest in medieval history.Beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs, “one of the great fictional heroines” ( Parade), investigates the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz in a page-turning tale of love and war, terror and survival. There’s also a superbly portrayed cast in a gripping setting which makes it a great read. Winspear has produced a thoroughly believable thriller, a page-turning tale of war and love, duty before self, terror and survival. Despite her claim to a title through her late husband, she is very much an ordinary, although exceptionally talented, brave and determined, woman. She represents everything that Americans – and we ourselves – think is best in the British character. Maisie, a Lambeth-born costermonger’s daughter who began her working life at 13 as a servant in a Belgravia mansion and has seized every chance to gradually morph into a renowned private detective with her own agency and links to the security services, has evolved into a deeply sympathetic character. Saxon’s death is covered up by British authorities, but a former contact Robert MacFarlane, the link between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, asks Maisie to work with US Department of Justice agent Mark Scott – who helped her 1938 escape from Munich – to uncover the truth.Īs terror rains from the skies and thousands die, Maisie must balance the demands of solving the case with her work as an ambulance driver and her need to protect Anna, the young evacuee she has grown to love and wants to adopt.Įntangled in an investigation linked to American political intrigue – the unlovely US ambassador Jospeh Kennedy, an America First isolationist and Nazi sympathiser – being played out in Britain, Maisie faces losing her dearest friend and must also deal with the possibility she might be falling in love again.
The London blitz – following the Luftwaffe failure in the Battle of Britain, the capital was systematically bombed for 56 of the 57 days and nights from Septem– is the backdrop as Maisie Dobbs investigates the death of Catherine Saxon, an American journalist determined to become part of the great Ed Murrow’s team of reporters and broadcasters documenting wartime Britain’s hardships in a bid to change then neutral America’s attitudes.
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