A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
With the country in the grip of economic malaise, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment to investigate a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggest a darker criminal element at work. A peculiar secrecy shrouds the village, and ultimately Maisie must draw on her finely-honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases yet.
An Incomplete Revenge
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In Edgar-finalist Winspear's enjoyable fifth installment in her Maisie Dobbs series (after 2006's Messenger of Truth), the psychologist/investigator digs deep into a village's long-buried secrets. Maisie's benefactor, tycoon James Compton, wants to buy an estate in the bucolic hamlet of Heronsdene, but is wary after a string of mysterious fires. Maisie soon proves Compton's suspicions correct when she encounters the shady current landowner and a vaguely menacing band of Gypsies in town for the seasonal harvest. The locals are also curiously tight-lipped about Heronsdene's wartime tragedy, when a zeppelin raid wiped out a family. Teasing out Heronsdene's secrets will take all the intrepid former nurse's psychological skills and test her ability to navigate between the Gypsy and gorja (non-Gypsy) worlds. Winspear vividly evokes England between the wars, when the old order crumbled and new horizons beckoned working women like her appealing heroine. Even if a few of the plot twists prove predictable, this jaunt back to a bygone era is as satisfying as a spin in Maisie's MG. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Maisie Dobbs is a revelation."--Alexander McCall Smith, Author of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
"Those unfamiliar with the Maisie Dobbs series are best advised to start here and work their way backward. . . . An Incomplete Revenge shows Maisie at the top of her detecting form."--Newsday
"A smart, pragmatic private investigator and psychologist with extraordinary empathic sensitivity . . . Every page of this novel is dense with affectionately rendered period detail. Winspear deftly intertwines multiple story lines. The tale becomes increasingly gripping as the novel progresses toward a truly moving ending."--The Boston Globe
"Winspear’s lively and graceful prose, strong sense of time and place, and her ability to create believable and sympathetic characters make the book a joy to read."--The Denver Post
"A pleasure . . . This nuanced series explores England in the aftermath of World War I, when millions of women who lost their husbands, lovers, and sons were left to make their own ways. Maisie is one of that group, and her way is an appealing one."--The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
"A compelling and intriguing puzzle . . . inspear infuses this moving novel with wisdom, restrained emotion and, as is her custom, issues of morality."--Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Intriguing . . . Fascinating . . . Skillfully drawn."--The Washington Times
"One of the more robust entries in the historical mystery category."--The Seattle Times
“Often eloquent and deeply human."--The Providence Journal
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More About the Author
Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Among the Mad and An Incomplete Revenge, as well as four other Maisie Dobbs novels. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha, Alex, and Macavity awards for the first book in the series, Maisie Dobbs. Originally from the United Kingdom, she now lives in California.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series is written from a lovely point of view. During this period between the world wars the women of England found themselves in a surplus situation of millions compared to the men who had been obliterated upon the killing fields of France. This problem was also an opportunity.
In this fifth book of the series we find Maisie trying to solve the mystery of some mysterious arson cases in a tiny village during the hop harvest. The village is a strange place, filled with an ominous sense of dread.
Maisie has been liberated in a sense occupationally by the war. Many women found new careers because there were so few men left. She also finds another form of liberation in this book, the freedom to love again.
Winspear evokes a much gentler place where discourse was less profane, crimes were less explicit, and the carnage was a tragic memory of war. Violence is implied. Language is muted. Emotions drizzle across the page like an English rain. Exquisite!
In this fifth book of the series we find Maisie trying to solve the mystery of some mysterious arson cases in a tiny village during the hop harvest. The village is a strange place, filled with an ominous sense of dread.
Maisie has been liberated in a sense occupationally by the war. Many women found new careers because there were so few men left. She also finds another form of liberation in this book, the freedom to love again.
Winspear evokes a much gentler place where discourse was less profane, crimes were less explicit, and the carnage was a tragic memory of war. Violence is implied. Language is muted. Emotions drizzle across the page like an English rain. Exquisite!
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By R. Boston
Format:Hardcover
Psychologist and Investigator Maisie Dobbs is hired to look into an odd series of petty thefts and fires in a small English village a decade or so after WW I. A series of annual fires, all near the anniversary of a Zeppelin attack on the town during WW I, are never reported to the authorities. The fire brigades are never called. The villagers extinguish the fires, acting as a single community, yet they seem to ignore the obvious reality that the fires are not accidents or coincidences. When asked, the indicdents are explained as accidents. No one will talk about them or the night of the Zeppelin attack, obviously deeply traumatized by something. Maisie gets to the bottom of it all, yet the truth is too unsettling to be comforting.
The book provides interesting insights into the British class system of the early 20th century, gypsie culture and the aftermath of war, but the book's true greatness is not manifest until near the end, as the pieces fall into place.
Though it starts a bit slow and may not immediately strike the reader as a great or even exceptionally good book, it exposes human nature as only great literature can. It is the only contemporary book I have read in years that I consider to be a great work of literature. Winspear peals back the layers of human nature, revealing raw grief, anger, fear, revenge and guilt.
This is one of the few books of our time that should be read and regarded as a classic by future generations. Once read, it will not be forgotten. It is not just another good detective novel.
The book provides interesting insights into the British class system of the early 20th century, gypsie culture and the aftermath of war, but the book's true greatness is not manifest until near the end, as the pieces fall into place.
Though it starts a bit slow and may not immediately strike the reader as a great or even exceptionally good book, it exposes human nature as only great literature can. It is the only contemporary book I have read in years that I consider to be a great work of literature. Winspear peals back the layers of human nature, revealing raw grief, anger, fear, revenge and guilt.
This is one of the few books of our time that should be read and regarded as a classic by future generations. Once read, it will not be forgotten. It is not just another good detective novel.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In 1931 business tycoon James Compton considers buying property in Heronsdene, Kent but a rash of questionable fires has left him re-evaluating his selection. He asks his friend London based investigative psychologist Maisie Dobbs to look into what seems to him as obvious the work of an arsonist. She would do anything for her mentor and besides needs the money he offers as the Great Depression has hammered at consultants like her so she agrees to visit the tiny rustic village.
Maisie quickie uncovers the suspicious dealings of a landowner while wondering why the locals refuse to speak about visiting Gypsies or a WW I zeppelin raid that killed an entire family; as the behavior is way beyond the normal suspicion of strangers. A struggling Maisie begins to tie together the townsfolk, the gypsies, the Great War and what happened afterward in remote Heronsdene, but someone is on war alert watching her every step.
The latest Dobbs between the World Wars' mystery is a terrific entry in one of the best twentieth century private investigation series. Maisie is at her best as she sleuths in a location in which no one wants her around let alone snooping. However, it is the sense of time and place that makes AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE and its four predecessors (see MESSENGER OF TRUTH, PARDONABLE LIES, MAISIE DOBBS and BIRDS OF A FEATHER) worth reading as few authors if any bring to life England in the late 1920s and early 1930s as picturesquely as Jacqueline Winspear consistently has done with the marvelous Maisie mysteries.
Harriet Klausner
Maisie quickie uncovers the suspicious dealings of a landowner while wondering why the locals refuse to speak about visiting Gypsies or a WW I zeppelin raid that killed an entire family; as the behavior is way beyond the normal suspicion of strangers. A struggling Maisie begins to tie together the townsfolk, the gypsies, the Great War and what happened afterward in remote Heronsdene, but someone is on war alert watching her every step.
The latest Dobbs between the World Wars' mystery is a terrific entry in one of the best twentieth century private investigation series. Maisie is at her best as she sleuths in a location in which no one wants her around let alone snooping. However, it is the sense of time and place that makes AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE and its four predecessors (see MESSENGER OF TRUTH, PARDONABLE LIES, MAISIE DOBBS and BIRDS OF A FEATHER) worth reading as few authors if any bring to life England in the late 1920s and early 1930s as picturesquely as Jacqueline Winspear consistently has done with the marvelous Maisie mysteries.
Harriet Klausner
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
#5 in a Great Series
This 5th book in the series continues to provide suspense without gratuitous violence. The characters continue to grow and mature and each story line is a little more complex than... Read more
Published 19 days ago by marecat
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another Winspear Wonder
Jacqueline Winspear is my current favourite author and I found this book to be a good read and very satisfying.
Published 1 month ago by Lizbeth
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another series sequel
I am a great fan of the whole Maisie Dobbs series. The titles are somewhat of a "come on" to find out what the whole book is about.
Published 1 month ago by Carol
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic mystery without the bells and whistles
I didn't have a great experience when I read Messenger of Truth, which was number four in the Maisie Dobbs series. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alexis
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Complete Order
I enjoyed this book, because I appreciate the order and cadence for which Jacqueline Winspear writes her Maisie Dobbs series. This next installment did not disappoint. Read more
Published 2 months ago by D. A. White
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maisie Dobbs helps James Compton discover the cause of mysterious...
In this book, Maisie Dobbs helps James Compton discover the cause of mysterious fires set on some property he wants to purchase outside of London. Read more
Published 2 months ago by M Denise C
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maisie's life reaches a turning point
Every year, the hop growers of post-World War I England need workers to harvest their crop. London families take "holidays" from their regular jobs and come out to the countryside,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Nina M. Osier
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another winner.
I would and have told everyone who likes to read about these books. They tell a great story without being filled with sex and gruesome bloody images. Way to tell a great story.
Published 2 months ago by daffy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful
All the Maisie Dobbs mysteries are a joy to read. I love the look into another time and place and it is so refreshing to read a mystery that is not fille with violence and blood.
Published 3 months ago by Marilyn Funaro
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maisie Fan
I have enjoyed the series as Maisie moves through the 20's and 30's. Winspear brings to life an era, and aspects after WWI that are easily swept under the rug, yet are still the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by S M Senden
