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Jacqueline Winspear's twelfth novel in the Maisie Dobbs series is a real page-turner with less of her usual methodical and sometimes plodding investigative practices and plenty of action. Although there are the usual multi-level dimensions to her adventures, the connections are more intriguing than in some of her other novels. Perhaps it is because pre-second Word War history is endlessly fascinating to me.
Enough background information about Dobbs is included with each novel in the series so that it can be enjoyed by first-time readers, but I confess that having read a few now, there is an added pleasure in following her interaction with characters that reappear from one story to another.
The novel opens with Maisie uncertain about her future but back in London having recovered from the personal tragedies which kept her away from family and friends for a year or two. Looking for a place to rent, she finds herself standing across from the building which housed her former office as "Psychologist & Investigator." Her thoughts are interrupted by Robert MacFarlane, from the British Secret Service. He had been part of her previous adventures in Gibraltar and Spain and has a new proposal for Maisie. And so, in spite of misgivings about returning to work, she is seduced by the plea that "your country needs you.""
A seventy-year-old British businessman and engineer named Leon Donat is being held in Dachau by the Nazis. It seems he has talents that interest the British government. Aside from his business acumen in manufacturing and his involvement with publishing, he is a also a "boffin," a tinkerer, an inventor, who thinks outside the box and that is why Britain wants him back, to help with the war effort. Donat was arrested for supporting a radical anti-Nazi press in Berlin. The British government has brokered a deal for his repatriation but the Nazis only agreed to release him to a family member. Donat's daughter is gravely ill and Maisie's skills and general appearance, especially her height, make her the right candidate to be groomed to take Edwina Donat's place. Fortunately Maisie also speaks some German and before she sets off for Munich, she is trained by the Secret Service in self-defence techniques in case something goes wrong.
Enter the subplot. Maisie is approached by a man named John Otterburn who has learned through his government contacts of her forthcoming trip to Munich. In spite of Otterburn's money and powerful connections on the continent, he has not been able to find his daughter Elaine, who has abandoned her husband and child and is leading a Bohemian life in Germany. In spite of the animosity she feels towards Otterburn because both he and his daughter were associated with events leading to the tragic death of her husband, Maisie softens to his request for help out of consideration for the child.
In Munich, the anticipated release of Donat is drawn out with numerous delaying tactics by the Nazis. This gives Maisie some free time to look for Elaine. Although it seems unlikely that she could successfully elude both German and Allied followers in pursuing her investigations, Maisie has little trouble in finding Elaine, whose life seems to be truly in a mess. She is also successful in finding the ransacked location of the radical printing press whose publications got Donat into trouble. Discovering some clues which the Nazis missed, she even tracks down the men who are continuing their mission printing attacks on the Nazi regime. Winspear's usual skilful plot development interweaves the connections which emerge related to her two reasons for being in Munich, the release of Donat and the attempt to get Elaine to return to her child. There is plenty of action and surprising events to keep those pages turning.
The novel ends with Maisie back in London with renewed self confidence about her future. Her assistants Sandra and Billy reappear on the scene, her old office location is reactivated and Billy marks the future direction of the Dobbs series for us when he presents Maisie with a new brass plate reading "Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist & Investigator."
§ Ann Pearson is a photographer and retired college Humanities teacher who lives in Montreal
Reviewed by Ann Pearson, March 2016
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