Amazon.com: An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels): Jacqueline Winspear: Books

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 the Hardcover edition.

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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Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (November 25, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312428189
ISBN-13: 978-0312428181
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #20,176 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#42 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > British Detectives

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This is item 5 in The Maisie Dobbs Series.

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First Sentence:
Marta Jones surveyed her students, casting her eyes around the studio, with its high ceilings and skeins upon skeins of colored yarn hanging from laundry racks raised up with pulleys and secured on the wall, and the six wooden looms pressed against one another, for space was at a premium. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Dobbs, James Compton, Alfred Sandermere, Fred Yeoman, Beattie Drummond, Margaret Lynch, Maisie Dobbs, Reverend Staples, Paddock Wood, Chelstone Manor, Pim Martin, Compton Corporation, Dickon's Farm, Frankie Dobbs, Maurice Blanche, Lady Rowan, High Street, Denmark Street, Dower House, Jacob Martin, Billy Beale, Easter Cottage, Tante Maisie, Marta Jones, Anna Martin

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	77% buy the item featured on this page: An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels) 4.1 out of 5 stars (34) $10.98
	7% buy Maisie Dobbs 3.9 out of 5 stars (108) $10.20
	5% buy Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels) 4.1 out of 5 stars (50) $10.98
	5% buy Birds of a Feather (Maisie Dobbs Mysteries) 4.0 out of 5 stars (45) $10.98

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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews

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4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
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Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars clean, tasty, sentimental, and classic, March 9, 2008

By	Richard Cumming "richo" (blue state) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels) (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!

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slow starting, but great literature by the end, May 14, 2008

By	R. Boston (Garland, Tx USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels) (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.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars marvelous Maisie mystery, February 21, 2008

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (Maisie Dobbs Novels) (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

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Detective Story
A good detective story that is equal to previous works of this author. I recommend it.

Published 2 months ago by Gus A. Schill, Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."
Reviewing Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs books is an interesting experience. It's kind of like reviewing the Charles Todd Inspector Rutledge books. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Laurie Fletcher

3.0 out of 5 stars Winspear is in a slump
I have read a few other Maisie Dobbs novels written by Jacqueline Winspear, and I was very much looking forward to this one, her latest. I don't know if Ms. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Booklover

4.0 out of 5 stars An Early Reviewer
I received this book as an early reviewer. I really liked the way the mysteries were drawn out and solved as the story developed. Read more

Published 4 months ago by CWhedon

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Five is a hit!
An Incomplete Revenge is the fifth book in the Maisie Dobbs series of mysteries. The books are set in post-WWI England, as the country hurtles toward another conflict in mainland... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Warren Kelly

3.0 out of 5 stars An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel
Maisie Dobbs was sent to investigate a potential land purchase. She travels to a village called Kent during the hop picking season. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Lerrgoo

4.0 out of 5 stars A dark and sober take on the traditional British mystery
The fifth in Jacqueline Winspear's series of the post-World War I British psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs, /An Incomplete Revenge/ is a bit broody and a bit dark, but... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Sacramento Book Review

5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent period piece
The author does a superb job evoking the time in which the story is set, the period between the wars. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Linda Overholt

3.0 out of 5 stars PERHAPS ANOTHER 1/2 STAR FOR RESEARCH
Were it not for all the good reviews, I may not have persevered with this book, but I'm glad I did. Not having read the prequels, I was a bit disoriented at the very beginning... Read more

Published 6 months ago by avid reader

4.0 out of 5 stars Just drink the damned tea, Maisie!
An Incomplete Revenge is the fifth installment in Jacqueline Winspear's series featuring investigator/psychologist Maisie Dobbs. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Debra Hamel

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