The Mapping Of Love And Death: A Maisie Dobbs Novel [Paperback]

The Mapping of Love and Death is the 7th book in Jacqueline Winspear's series featuring Maisie Dobbs.

This wonderful series is set in the past in England. The first novel began in the 1920's and this seventh offering is set in 1932. Maisie Dobbs is a unique creation. She began as a servant in a mansion at age thirteen. When her employer took an interest in Maisie and her intelligent, inquisitive nature, she sponsored her education. Fast forward to 1932. Maisie has had psychological training, served as a nurse in the war and now owns and runs an Investigative Agency.

"The path from there to here had been far from straight, had looped back and forth, yet always with an imagined place ahead - that she would be a woman of independent means would rise above her circumstances."

This latest outing finds Maisie employed by the Clifton family. Their son Michael's body has just been recovered - he was killed during the war. With his body were unsigned letters from a nurse he seems to have fallen in love with. The family would like to connect with her. Maisie is hired to track her down. But examination of Michael Clifton's body reveals that he was murdered before his unit was bombed and killed. Could his mapping skills and land purchase just before the war have something to do with his death? The case involves much more than first thought.

The Maisie Dobbs series are such a comfortable, almost genteel read, if you will. The social customs, manners and mores of the times are all faithfully observed in Winspear's writing. I enjoy being transported to this time period. The Great War brought many changes to England. Class and gender lines are changing. It has been interesting to watch Maisie's growth as she acquires knowledge, confidence and skills over the last 6 books. Of course, detection methods during this time are greatly different from the modern day detective novel. It is refreshing to see crimes solved the 'old fashioned' way, with a lots of legwork, questions and thought. I admire Maisie's quiet intelligence and her calm demeanor.

Winspear also includes an ongoing secondary storyline in addition to the mystery of every book. Maisie's personal life - her search for love and happiness- is just as interesting.

Maisie Dobbs is perfect for curling up under a quilt with a pot of tea - just a great historical mystery series with an intriguing protagonist.

I have been reading the "Maisie Dobbs" series by Jacqueline Winspear since her first novel, "Maisie Dobbs". I was eagerly looking forward to this book and I was fortunate that it was offered in the Vine program. "The Mapping of Love and Death" is every bit as well-written and well-plotted as her previous ones.

Series books, like the "Maisie Dobbs" novels, represent both a challenge and opportunity to the writer. The challenge is to keep the story and characters moving forward in an engaging way and the opportunity is to accept the challenge to do so. Winspear does both. Her lead characters, Maisie Dobbs, Billy Beale, the Compton family, and Maisie's mentor Maurice Blanche continue to age as time passes from England in the 1920's to England in the 1930's. Maisie's detective agency is succeeding in the midst of the Depression and she is given a new case that involves the death of of an American soldier during The Great War and the repercussions on to the soldier's family. As usual with Maisie's cases, the truth at the end contains many deceptions and cover ups.
As real life does, I suppose...

Winspear's writing is so good that a new "Maisie Dobbs" reader could pick up this, her latest, and feel completely comfortable reading it. She reintroduces old characters and situations in such a nuanced way that doesn't seem repetitious to the veteran series reader. She has written a great addition to the "Maisie Dobbs" series. Enjoy.

How do you solve a murder that took place on a battlefield more than a decade earlier? With a little bit of luck and a lot of skill and intuition. When an elderly American couple engaged Maisie Dobbs when their son's body was uncovered on a French farm, they provided her with many love letters sent to him by an English nurse, as well as his journal. These documents provided elusive clues.

However, more important were the results of an autopsy which indicated that the man was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt instrument, rather than a Boche shell, which buried the dugout with his body and those of his bunkmates inside. Serendipity, of course, plays an important role in solving the murder, and Maisie certainly doesn't lack for that either.

The seventh novel in the series, which traces the adventures of a young woman from her humble beginnings to serving as a nurse during the First World War to becoming an accomplished investigator, this story demonstrates not only Maisie's growth as a detective, but also the changes in her life that presumably will become apparent in future installments. They are something to which one can look forward.

Recommended.