Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs Novels) (Hardcover)

by Jacqueline Winspear (Author)
Key Phrases: Miss Dobbs, Chief Superintendent, Scotland Yard (more...)

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Jacqueline Winspear on Among the Mad

From the time I realized that in Maisie Dobbs I had a series character, I've wanted to explore further the phenomenon of the range of war neuroses known to the layperson as "shell shock," and how we see those whose behavior isn't always within the bounds of what we consider "normal." I also wanted to look again, through the lens of story and history, at the manner in which society treats wounded veterans, especially those whose wounds cannot be seen, but are of the mind and spirit. To do this, I drew as much upon personal experience as my research.

As many of my readers know, my grandfather suffered both physical wounds and shell shock in the Great War, and as a child I remember having to be quiet around him, so as not to excite or trouble an elderly man with terrible memories. Later, in my mid-teens, I attended a school where we were required to undertake community service one afternoon each week (and we had to attend school on Saturday mornings to make up for it!). So, on Wednesday afternoons, I joined a small group who visited a psychiatric hospital--to talk to the patients, make the tea, read to them and generally offer kindness and companionship. I can recall many of the patients, some who were obviously not able to live outside an institution, and others who inspired one to wonder why they were there at all--and when you found out, the reason was often shocking. I remember one patient I talked with each week, an astoundingly sharp, intelligent man. He had been a top-ranking surgeon, one who was regarded as almost without peer. He was also a madman, a murderer. I thought of him often while writing Among the Mad.

Last year, during my book tour, a military chaplain came to one of my events and stayed behind afterwards to talk to me. He told me that he recommended my books to the families of those who have suffered loss during the Iraq war, and especially to people who are trying to accommodate the special needs of a soldier suffering from what we today call Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). He added that in reading a story where such losses are suffered in a time of war, yet separated by history, it facilitates a deeper understanding of what the returning veteran might be experiencing, and challenges involved in coming home from war.

The recent news that servicemen and woman wounded by PTSD will not be eligible for the Military Order of the Purple Heart--awarded to US military personnel who have been wounded or killed in a war zone--struck a chord. In Britain during and following the Great War there was much controversy about war neuroses, and many soldiers were denied a pension as a result of a clampdown on the diagnosis of shell shock. In my second novel, Birds of a Feather, one of the characters says, "That’s the trouble with war, it’s never over when it's over, it lives on inside the living." Such a sentiment is never more true than in the case of the man or woman who has served their country in a time of war, but who has to live with that war reverberating in their mind every single day for the rest of their lives. Maisie Dobbs is such a person, as is the person she is in a race to find in Among the Mad.

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Winspears sixth Maisie Dobbs novel (after 2008s An Incomplete Revenge) raises the stakes considerably for her psychologically astute sleuth. On Christmas eve 1931, a man Maisie passes on a London street detonates a bomb, killing himself and slightly wounding Maisie. This traumatic event turns out to be linked to threatening letters the British prime minister starts to receive, the first of which mentions Maisie by name. Maisie joins a high-powered investigative team devoted to averting the cataclysmic disaster promised by the unknown author of the messages. By providing the letter writers perspective, Winspear removes some of the mystery. In addition, Maisies speculative guesses about the profile of the criminal, while accurate, have less logical grounding than traditional puzzle fans might prefer. Still, Winspear does her usual superb job of portraying London between the world wars. (Feb.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (February 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805082166
• ISBN-13: 978-0805082166
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 6 in The Maisie Dobbs Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "For he was indubitably a man who has been to war as he vanishes into the noxious blend of smoke and fog." , February 19, 2009

By	Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From the violence of war to.... "peace"?, February 20, 2009

By	S. McGee (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Will they hear my voice--our voices? I am not one man, no, I am legion.", February 21, 2009

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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