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Title: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear ISBN: 1-56947-330-7 Publisher: Soho Press, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.78 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Gosford Park Meets the English Patient
Comment: While Maisie Dobbs is certainly less "literary" than "The English Patient," in the course of an entertaining, mystery-driven read, it gives us new perspectives on the impact of the Great War and the suffering it caused. Who knew that when maimed young men returned from the front, they were made uncomfortable by "normal" society and sought refuge in camps where they could be among their own? The book also introduces a character like no other. Maisie is a woman of her time in that she is riding the crest of change (the work women performed during the war changed things for her gender). But as a sleuth, she relies on her highly trained powers of intuition much like Sherlock Holmes relies on his ability to observe and deduce. Oh yeah, if you liked Gosford Park and Upstairs Downstairs, you'll eat up the back story in this book, which tells of Maisie's early life below stairs and occupies a large portion of the story in flashback. In all, Maisie Dobbs is a charmer and a page turner that leaves one wishing it was a hundred pages longer.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great book...hope it's not beginner's luck....
Comment: Over the years, I've read a number of excellent 'first' novels followed by mediocre second, third, etc. novels. Hopefully, Jacqueline Winspear will be able to match her excellent first novel MAISIE DOBBS with the future series of stories she promises. Winspear has created an extremely likeable and interesting heroine and complemented her with a unique supporting cast of characters as well as an intriguing plot or two. With the exception of one relatively implausible scene and an exactitude of description that at times makes her tale somewhat formulaic and distracting (do I really care about the color of the little bows on the client's wife's shoes?), I found this book a good and interesting read.
Maisie Dobbs 'exists' in the late 1920s, but the book contains a good deal of material describing life in the Belle Epoch and the period during and immediately after WWI. The horrendous loss of millions of men in WWI left women like Maisie facing an uncertain life without the prospect of a mate and children. What could one do but become a strong single woman who earned her own keep. .
Winspear deftly explains though her somewhat deconstructed tale how Maisie's young life shaped her latter life-where we find her at the start and ending of the tale. Maisie came to have an understanding of psychology and the occult, and she turned to medicine as a career choice she abandoned after the war. Maisie uses forensics in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, an understanding of human nature in the Miss Marple sense, and has a penchant for getting into tight situations ala Harriet Vane. She also drives a 'motor' Capt. Hastings would have adored. I like Maisie Dobbs and I hope to see her in print again very soon.
Rating: 5
Summary: Whoosa, this is a good one, says Kat from Readerville.com
Comment: The eponymous character is an anomaly of the time (housemaid made good so to speak) who, with the help of the kindly bourgeoisie, transcends her humble birth to become a psychologist-detective with experience as a nurse in WWI, a tragic lost love, schooling at Cambridge/Girton (before women were able to attain degrees) and so on. There's a mystery here, too, but mostly the story is Maisie's and she's terrific.
The prose is redolent of its place and time and, even though Maisie may be a revisionist, she's most refreshingly wonderful if too pure and serious. Can't wait for the next Maisie mystery.
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Title: The Guards : A Novel by Ken Bruen ISBN: 0312320272 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 19 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Now May You Weep: A Novel by Deborah Crombie ISBN: 0060525231 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Night of the Dance: A Mystery by James Hime ISBN: 0312313225 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 21 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Out by Natsuo Kirino, Stephen Snyder ISBN: 4770029055 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Bookman's Promise : A Cliff Janeway Novel by John Dunning ISBN: 0743249925 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 09 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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