Customer Reviews

Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs, Book 6)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A much darker and leaner tale than her previous Maisie Dobbs outings, in Among the Mad, Jacqueline Winspear focuses on the collateral damage of the Great War, the terror and chaos of the battlefield and how it ultimately devastated a generation of young men. Maisie unexpectedly journeys into hostile territory and a dark landscape that involves a loss of Britain's innocence. Much of the drama plays out on the crowded streets of London as Maisie and her assistant Billy Beal find themselves caught up in a 1930's style suicide bombing when a man begging on the street corner suddenly activates a hand grenade inside his tattered and stained khaki coat.

Barely escaping with her life, Maisie had innocently walked up to him, his leg stretched out, as if he were lame. And as she had reached into her bag to offer money to someone who had so little, the grenade had suddenly exploded. There was a point at which Maisie new that the man would take his life. The man had been a soldier, the right leg amputated. As Detective Inspector Richard Stratton, who saw it all happen offers Maisie as measure of comfort, she remains haunted by the sense that someone had seen her reach out to the doomed man, had seen their eyes meet just before he pulled the pin that would ignite the grenade.

It is this attack that coincides with a much larger threat. In a wet London with an "unyielding quality of gray light that makes the word Merry Christmas seem hardly worth saying," a note, soiled by saliva, is received by the Home Security, telling of a terrible disaster involving a lethal nerve agent. The note also mentions Maisie's name and demands that the government act immediately to alleviate the suffering of all unemployed, starting with measures to assist those who have served their country in wartime. Certainly Maisie's talents render her a valuable member of the group centered in Scotland Yard. Together with Special Branch's Colm Darby and DCI Robert MacPharlane, Maisie prepares her template, piecing together a portrait of a man who is haunted by the ghosts of the Great War and has somehow been abandoned and has abandoned life.

From the outset it is obvious that two cases, linked by the person writing the letter, has used Maisie's name as currency to ad weight to his endeavor. Then a sickening report comes in of a gas attack on a number of dogs in Battersea. Coupled with the surprise revelation that MacFarlane has a group in custody and believes them to be behind the threats, union activists. Still the question remains: How could a man bring himself to kill innocent life, both animal and human? Winspear unfolds Maisie's latest case with a chilling urgency, from the paranoia of a killer who is determined to gas half of London to the furtive events at Mulberry Point and the strange experiments of the staff and their overexposure to nerve agents, the fate of many of the young soldiers unknown, and a cover up by the men of the Military Intelligence, Section five. Soon Maisie's investigations reveal the ugly details of the enigmatic Dr Anthony Lawrence, an expert in treatment of psychological trauma whose actions are surely dictated by his ambition and a professional curiosity.

Maisie is hardly a naïve protagonist but in this installment she is forced to confront her own reticence and her lack of emotional mastery when faced with the possibility of a more intimate connection. Meanwhile, Maisie tries to help Billy's wife Doreen and her growing melancholia, and also that of her best friend best friend Priscilla who is battles drink while trying desperately to remake her life. Even after thirteen years the war still ravages these characters. Shocking and painful, Winspear tries to inject hope into the narrative even as war neurosis and neurasthenia battle fatigue seem to have consumed a young soldier's heart, ultimately enveloping him in hysteria along with thousands of other lost boys. While the novel has the traditional attributes of a fast-paced and entertaining historical mystery - with the delightful character of Maisie always at its core - there's a deeper understanding at work here as the author digs deep into the mind of a man who has seen battle at close quarters and is so afflicted mentally and emotionally, embroiled in a deep melancholia and darkness. Mike Leonard February 09.

In the world that Maisie Dobbs ("Psychologist and Investigator") inhabits, peace is an elusive phenomenon, even 13 years after the Armistice put an end to the trench warfare that she witnessed as a nurse. In the aftermath of the Great War, Maisie now finds herself battling with the legacy of that conflict. In Winspear's five previous novels, she has dealt with the aftermath of mysterious wartime Zeppelin attacks, evil doings at a hospital for disfigured soldiers and myriad other crimes tied to the aftermath of the war.

In this, Winspear's sixth novel in the series, Maisie is unwittingly dragged into a case that involves terrorist threats. After witnessing a man she believes to be a troubled veteran blow himself up with a hand grenade, her name is mentioned in a threatening letter that another soldier sends to Scotland Yard and top government ministers. Along with her former admirer, Inspector Stratton, Maisie must work with Special Branch police to fend off a chemical weapons threat from a disturbed individual demanding that the government treat veterans -- disabled or otherwise -- fairly and honorably. It's a difficult case for Maisie, not only because she must grapple with her own mixed emotions -- she has seen, all too clearly, the struggle that the men she once nursed in France have when they try to return civilian life -- but because she is also grappling with the personal problems of her assistant, Billy Beale, and her closest friend.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, given this somber backdrop, the novel often feels very intense and even downright melancholy. That's appropriate, given the subject matter. Still, this would have been a stronger book had Winspear had a lighter touch with both plot and characters. (I have read serial killer novels that felt less dark and depressing.) Still, Winspear's writing is exceptionally strong and powerful, doing justice to the themes she chooses to explore. She also avoids the easy plot twists; Maisie, a complex character who has risen to her current status from life as a servant, has yet to find romance in her postwar life.

I am beginning to wonder, however, how long a series with such a narrow focus can endure. Shell shock and the trauma of rebuilding a life after a war is not a theme that offers enough that is new and fresh to remain the core of Maisie's investigations and Winspear's writing for many more books. Yes, it's unquestionably important, but at some point the reader is going to start to shrug his or her shoulders, saying that they've heard it all before. Moreover, as 1932 dawns in Maisie's fictional world, other factors are now emerging as important. There is a global depression taking hold, the Blackshirts are marching in London (a fact that gets one short, cryptic reference in this book) and within a year, Hitler will take power in Germany. I, for one, hope that Winspear finds a way to blend her fascination with the Great War with a more diverse array of mysteries for Maisie to investigate and plots that depend as much upon what is happening contemporaneously as what happened more than a decade previously. Continuing to revisit the same territory without some new element will, I fear, cause some of her readers, myself among them, will begin to fall by the wayside.

For those who have not yet stumbled across Rennie Airth, I'd recommend two other mysteries set in the same time period: The Blood-Dimmed Tide (Penguin Mysteries)and River of Darkness. I was elated to discover this superb author has a third book coming out this summer. While I'll give Winspear's latest four stars, either of Airth's books -- which deal with similar issues -- easily capture a fifth star. Charles Todd's longer series features a Scotland Yard detective grappling with shell shock, but who investigates a wide array of crimes, some of which have no connection to the war itself. Increasingly, I am coming to prefer that series to Winspear's books, simply because of the variety of themes the books explore.

This is the sixth book in the series about Maisie Dobbs, a former domestic servant who "made good" as a result of sponsorship by her former employer and is now operating as a psychologically-oriented private investigator in depression-era London. I enjoyed several of the earlier books, especially for their compelling picture of a British society still reeling from the effects of WWI and now experiencing the economic tribulations of the Depression. Unfortunately, in this book the atmosphere took over to the detriment of the plot and the characters.

Although the Depression is an important element of the society that Ms. Winspear effectively constructs, the psychological injury caused by the Great War seems to be the dominant theme and the major depressant on the characters. The book opens with a former soldier committing suicide on the sidewalk as Maisie witnesses in horror; it continues as the police and Maisie try to track down an insane former soldier who is threatening to commit terrorist attacks in London to bring attention to the needs of veterans; the wife of Maisie's employee Billy becomes deranged by the death of her young daughter and has to be hospitalized; and Maisie has to deal with what seems to be the impending nervous breakdown of her best friend Priscilla. Practically EVERYONE in this book has serious mental problems; it exceeds credibility.

The atmosphere of this psychologically dysfunctional society overwhelms the book to the detriment of the plot. During most of the book, Maisie and the police are racing against time to locate a potential mass murderer, but there is little sense of suspense because all the details about the society and the historical background that created it and molded the characters slow the plot to a plod.

The overwhelming attention to the atmosphere also seemed to result in short shrift being given to the development of the characters. Two police officers, McFarland and Stratton, might be interested in Maisie romantically, but they were not QUITE well-developed enough for me to be sure...or to care. There is a significant subplot about a scientist whose devotion to his science or maybe to ego gratification leads him to commit immoral acts, but the character of this scientist should have been developed more, so that we could have understood him better. The point of view never let us get inside these people. Maisie herself seems flat; it is hard to tell what motivates her.

I listened to this book, and the medium may have affected my impressions, since I enjoyed the 3 Maisie Dobbs books I read the traditional way much more. The reader has a wonderful British accent, but her delivery seemed a bit melodramatic and unnatural. I found especially annoying her habit of accenting certain words in a sentence that struck me as NOT the words a person would normally stress. I kept wondering, "Is she implying some emotion or attitude I don't get, or is this just bad reading?" Whichever it was, I would suggest that you read other Maisie Dobbs books before you tackle this one, and if you get as far as book 6, read the book rather than listening to the audio.

The intrepid Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and private investigator, is walking through London on Christmas Eve, 1931, when a man she believes to be a shell-shocked veteran of World War I suddenly blows himself up, injuring Maisie and several other bystanders. Maisie herself has served in the Great War as a nurse, and she, too, suffered injuries, both physical and emotional during the war, so she has always been particularly sympathetic to the plight of these unfortunate, mentally ill veterans. Ineligible for the kinds of pensions, benefits, and services that physically injured veterans receive, they are often homeless and too damaged to get and keep a job to support themselves. They have been abandoned: no one even knows the name of the suicide victim.

Another anonymous (and mentally ill) veteran observes the suicide, and shortly afterward issues a threat, telling the authorities that he will "demonstrate [his] power," if the government does not alleviate the suffering of war veterans within forty-eight hours. "If you doubt my sincerity," he says, "ask Maisie Dobbs." Interviewed by Scotland Yard, the Special Branch, and military intelligence, Maisie convinces the authorities that she has had no previous contact with the suicide, and they eventually hire her to help them identify and then find the person who has issued the threat. As the hours tick down, the brilliant but obviously insane man takes action, quickly demonstrating that he is an expert on gases and proving that he will use them. Old Year's Day, on Dec. 31, is the day he intends to demonstrate his full power on the crowds celebrating in London.

Maisie's investigation takes her into the dark world of insane asylums, those who run them, the treatments they provide, and their chances for success, at the same time that the author also depicts the political and social unrest in the aftermath of the war. The issue of mental illness takes on particularly poignant notes because Doreen Beale, the wife of Billy Beale, Maisie's conscientious assistant, is still so fixated on the death of one of their children, though a year has passed, that she refuses to believe her child has died, and she is unable to care for their two surviving children.

Jacqueline Winspear writes in an exceptionally clear and simple style, and though her theme is thought-provoking, she never lets complex details bog down her fast-paced narrative. Her depiction of the social mores and the political policies of the era between the two world wars give an authenticity to the atmosphere which pervades the novel. As Maisie gradually comes to terms with her own emotional limitations as a result of her war experiences, the novel hints at new directions to come in future novels. n Mary Whipple

Maisie Dobbs, 2003
Birds of a Feather (Maisie Dobbs Mysteries), 2004
Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, 2005
Messenger of Truth: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, 2006
An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, 2008

This is my favorite of the Maisie Dobbs novels. It is much darker, but Ms. Winspear is obviously invested in the conflicts she explores. The story, set in 1931, is relevant to today because it seems we have made little progress in the treatment of those torn apart mentally and emotionally by the ravages of war.
Maisie is, of course, solving a mystery while also extending a helping hand to an employee and to a friend. Along the way she gains more insight into her own character.

This my first experience with an audio novel and I couldn't have selected a better reader or work of fiction for this experience. Orlagh Cassidy's reading (acting) is amazing. Relying on her voice alone she convincingly delivers the full effect of this highly engaging work by Jacqueline Winspear set in the years following the end of the First World War. The theme of this novel is totally relevant for today's times -- we no longer call the mentally wounded "shell-shocked" but the devastating after affects of war are well known to most of us today as "post traumatic syndrome, trauma" plus a plethora of other labels.

The heroine of "Among the Mad" is Masie Dobbs, a nurse during the war years whose fiancé fell in WWI, is what we would call a "profiler" on today's profiling team. She is assisted by veteran Billy Beale, whose wife and family are attempting to cope with the death of their daughter. Masie Dobbs and Billy Beale are walking on a London street on Christmas Eve when just behind them a man commits suicide by grenade narrowly missing to take with him other passersby; the aftermath of this suicide and a subsequent communication to the government threatening mass killings is received on Boxing Day (December 26). Masie Dobbs is involved in this terrifying situation from the beginning because both she and Billy heard the explosion and witnessed the aftermath. She is recruited to help uncover who is both capable of and threatening to commit mass murders.

I highly recommend "Among the Mad" to anyone interested in terrific entertainment.

With breath-taking timeliness, Winspear gives us a critique of society's tendency to respect physical wounds of war while dismissing or ignoring damage mental and spiritual. As the current debate over giving the Purple Heart for PTSD and other non-bleeding injuries is conducted in the press and DC, we might do well to think back to the Great War and realize that this problem isn't as new as some VA spokespeople try to make it sound.

What do we expect from mystery/thrillers? Whodunnit, of course, and some action - mental or physical or, better yet, both. In excellent mysteries we also expect the exploration of a worth-while topic, whether it be the plundering of Bagdad museums or the cultural norms of the Seneca nation.

There is darkness here, both in the plot and in the problems of the characters, but -- unlike Elizabeth George's characters, for example -- the protagonists here are not miserable people. Billy and his wife have lost a child; Maisie has lost her long-time love. But they are capable of happiness. The time of year, year's end in foggy London, increases the foreboding, as it never seems to be full daylight. There are a few too many men with important jobs running around for the casual reader to keep straight. If it's important that someone took a train, we should be able to remember who he is.

But the plot keeps everything moving, with timed treats ticking off the hours. It's easily the most high-tension novel Winspear has given us. One reviewer here complains that the book continues after the crime is solved -- not so. There are two endings, the public and the private. For fans of the series, this is a big reward.

The Maisie Dobbs series is grounded in social justice issues - class boundaries are at the heart of it, but each novel has its own additional agenda. Yes, it makes for a darker read than Wodehouse provides, but then Jeeves never went to Cambridge, did he? If we have a thinking protagonist, we must expect her to think.

If you read with pleasure Laurie R King's Touchstone, you will treasure this novel.

This was the first I've heard (or even read) something from this author. But let me say she sure knows how to give a (mystery) story!!! Without giving much away, it's set in London and naturally a lot of the story is in England accent, but as long as you have a grasp of the English language it's not all difficult to understand. The topic is very appropriate for our age.

The reader has a soothing voice. And this DVD book made some long drives for me much shorter while listening to it in the car.

On Christmas Eve, 1931, Maisie Dobbs--psychologist and investigator--witnesses a disabled WWI vet blow himself up on the sidewalk. Alas, it's just the first act of violence that will mar Maisie's holiday season. There's a madman on the loose in London looking to wreak havoc because he and other veterans have been ill provided for by his country--so he explains in rambling journal entries that punctuate this novel. Maisie is called in to Scotland Yard to help with the investigation. There she catches the eye of Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane. And sure, in a weak moment she feeds him soup, but that's as far as she'll go: Maisie is married to her memories and her depressive world outlook. She will brook no man in her life.

Maisie, I'm afraid, is beginning to irritate me. The world she inhabits is simply too bleak--people are going crazy left and right or they're standing in bread lines; even the wealthy are drinking away their troubles. And Maisie bears the weight of all this to an annoying degree. Moreover, she's not as brilliant as everyone seems to think, though Lord knows she measures her words more carefully than most. She'll point out something obvious like that there might be other disaffected veterans whose grievances will lead them to violence and the policemen around her act like she's wisdom personified. All this combined with the fact that the book felt interminable and I'm afraid Winspear's sixth Maisie Dobbs novel is going to be my last.

-- Debra Hamel

What is interesting about the character Maisie Dobbs, from reading the whole series, is her ability to help others yet she can't quite help herself. She's can't let go of the war or her lost love simon, which leaves her isolated. It will be interesting to see how she reacts when another war will soon be on the horizon. I just love this series! Why this has'nt gotten to the screen is beyond me.