Private investigator Maisie Dobbs receives her first assignment from the British Secret Service in A Lesson in Secrets, the eighth book in Jacqueline Winspear’s award-winning mystery series. Sent to pose as a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge, she will monitor any activities “not in the interests of His Majesty’s government.” When the college’s pacifist founder is murdered, Maisie finds herself in the midst of sinister web of murder, scandal, and conspiracy, activities that point towards members of the ascendant Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—the Nazi Party—on Britain’s shores. An instant classic, and sure to captivate long-time Maisie Dobbs fans as well as readers of Agatha Christie, Elizabeth George, and Alexander McCall Smith, A Lesson in Secrets is “a powerful and complex novel, one that will linger in memory as a testament to her talent and her humanity” (Richmond Times-Dispatch).
A Lesson in Secrets: A Maisie Dobbs Novel
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Amazon Exclusive: Lee Child Interviews Jacqueline Winspear
Jacqueline Winspear, like her interviewer, the iconic, bestselling author Lee Child, originally hails from the United Kingdom. A Lesson in Secrets is her eighth novel featuring psychologist-investigator and former WW1 nurse, Maisie Dobbs. Here she talks with Child about her work on the series, and her enduring interest in the aftermath of WW1.
Lee Child: People are often surprised that I'm a huge Maisie Dobbs fan, because Jack Reacher is all about a kind of Spartan American masculinity, and Maisie Dobbs is all about a kind of feminine English refinement. But they're both strong, unconventional people. Perhaps that's the cross-genre appeal? Do you find that Maisie attracts an unusual mix of readers?
Jacqueline Winspear: I’m thrilled you’re such a Maisie Dobbs fan--and you can count me among those millions of Jack Reacher fans. Maisie and Reacher are both unconventional, but I believe another factor in their cross-genre appeal is that both have endured life-changing challenges. Maisie attracts diverse readers: men and women, all age groups, veterans, nurses, college students, people who have faced troubles, and people interested in the era.
LC: And in fact your novels are driven by violence far worse than mine--off the page, granted, but there’s no getting around the fact that at the heart of your books is the aftermath of a horrendous war, with its attendant violence and death. How do you see the role of violence in your novels?
JW: I think you hit the theme there with “aftermath.” The violence in my books is that searing, painful residue left by the passing of a terrible time, when people were also crushed emotionally by the deep losses over a four-year period. In addition, there’s that element of violence that lingers--in Among the Mad, for example--when war’s tentacles will not let go. We see that again today in the stories of veterans who are still fighting their wars, but the conflict is raging inside them.
LC: As a kid in England I remember seeing hundreds of maimed old men, and hundreds of lonely old women. My grandfather was an example of the first, and two great-aunts examples of the second - sad reminders of a terrible time. Was it something similar that drew you to the First World War and the “Between the Wars” era that followed?
JW: I have the same memories--my grandfather was wounded at the Battle of the Somme, and my grandmother was partially blinded at the Woolwich Arsenal, in an explosion that wounded her sister and killed several girls working alongside her. There were the elderly spinsters in my neighborhood, and for each there was that old sepia photograph on the mantelpiece, of a sweetheart or brother lost to war. Those childhood memories led me to think a lot about what happens after war is done. As a character says in Birds of a Feather, “That’s the trouble with war; it lives on inside the living.”
LC: I was introduced to Maisie Dobbs by my wife, who passed through an airport and picked up the first in the series. She loved it, and urged me to read it, and I'm glad I did. It's one of the very, very few series we both love equally--in fact, perhaps the only one. Is this typical of your readers?
JW: I receive so many emails from fans who tell me that the books are read by all members of the family. And many women tell me that it was their husband who first discovered Maisie. The books are as accessible to readers aged about fourteen as they are to seniors. There are few things today that all age groups within a family can engage in, discuss and get excited about, so it’s lovely when I hear that family members are awaiting the next book so they can all read it.
LC: Maisie is definitively feminine, but she's running a business, and poking around in a "man's world," which is true to the times, and indicative of the early stages of feminism in the West. Was that something you wanted to explore?
JW: It would have been difficult to introduce a character such as Maisie and not explore the fact that the Great War left so many women to forge a life alone. If there was one thing I wanted to do, it was to bring the spirit of that generation to the character of Maisie Dobbs. Of course, some women floundered and lived lonely lives, but there were a great many who blazed a trail. I believe an archetype was born at that time--the stoic British woman who is independent and more than a little opinionated, with a heart of gold under a tough exterior, and who knows what it is to endure. Dame Maggie Smith has played that character in several films.
LC: Maisie understands human psychology in a way that seems to be an early and experimental pre-echo of what we'd now call criminal profiling. It's a huge part of both her process and her appeal. Where did that come from?
JW: That developed in a very organic way. Having established her as a “sensitive,” I wanted to give her real expertise--and there are historical underpinnings to this aspect of her character. Maisie studied the Moral Sciences curriculum at Girton College when psychology was in its infancy. I have the prospectus from 1913, and about one third of the course was the study of modern psychology. It was a time of great experimentation, so Maisie’s processes have their roots in real practices considered innovative at the time.
LC: One of your decisions I admire is the way you have moved the series forward in time so firmly. Most writers would have continued mining the same immediate post-war seam forever. What was your thinking behind that? And how do you keep the character fresh as the series itself develops?
JW: I once heard you say at a conference, “The reader comes back to a series, not to find out what the sleuth does with the case, but what the case does to the sleuth.” I agree. We are all impacted not only by our past, but by our current circumstances and those around us. You always put Reacher in a new area, be it small town or big city; and through his wandering we learn a lot about him. I work with the geography of time. Not everyone likes change and many readers would like Maisie Dobbs to stay as she is in a given book. But life’s not like that--the goalposts tend to move when we are at our most comfortable, and I want to keep the series fresh.
LC: I’m often asked if I have a favorite book within my series, so now I’m turning the tables: Do you have favorites among your novels?
JW: That’s such a difficult question, because each book not only represents a different place on my journey as a writer, but has been inspired by something that touched me. I think Maisie Dobbs will always be very tightly held in my affections, because it was my first book and was written at a difficult time in my life, when I was recovering from a horrible accident. The other choice would be The Mapping of Love and Death, because it was inspired by the true story of a soldier whose remains lay under Belgian soil for some 90 years until unearthed by a farmer. I learned more about him when I became involved in the quest to discover his origins. When I look at that book, I think of a young man lost to war who was never identified and who was eventually laid to rest as “A Soldier of The Great War, Known Unto God.” I ache for the parents who never knew where their son died, for he had probably been listed as “Missing, Presumed Dead.”
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Publishers Weekly
In Winspear's solid eighth Maisie Dobbs novel (after The Mapping of Love and Death), Maisie finds herself financially independent, thanks to a bequest from her late mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche, and open to new challenges exactly at the moment the British Secret Service seeks to recruit her in 1932. Greville Liddicote, the author of a pacifist children's book that the government went to great pains to suppress during WWI, has founded a college in Cambridge devoted to maintaining peace in Europe. To keep tabs on Liddicote, Maisie infiltrates his school under the guise of a philosophy teacher. When a staff member is murdered, she reverts to her old profession and works to aid the police inquiry from the inside. Maisie's new affluence allows her to intervene benevolently in the lives of those she cares for and her romantic life intensifies, but these positive personal developments end up making her less interesting as a protagonist than formerly. 9-city author tour. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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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
129 of 133 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
In the previous novel, changes in Maisie Dobbs' personal life have set her on a new course in her investigations. In the newest book, a bridge is beginning to form between repercussions of the Great War and the yet unknown second World War, while Maisie is asked by the British secret service to take a position as philosophy teacher at a new university in Cambridge which preaches a philosophy of peace, to investigate whether any activies taking place there are subversive to the Crown. The head of the university is a man who wrote a children's book about the war so filled with pacifist leanings that it was banned by the government and was rumored to have caused a mutiny at the front lines. Maisie is not there long before the man is murdered. While Scotland Yard investigates, Maisie continues her own inquiries, and, a bit too priescently, I thought, warns the Secret Service about certain of her students with Nazi leanings and the party itself (which, of course, the Government-types ignore). There is much more for Maisie to learn about the man's life and the secretary who disappears following the death, about the German professor that steps into his place and the wealthy man who funds the school.
In the meantime, Billy Beale works on the case brought to them by Sandra, a young woman whose husband died due to an accident at work. As the story progresses, both Maisie and Billy suspect the accident wasn't one at all. Maisie's old friend Priscilla and her family are drawn into this portion of the story.
Maisie's relationship with her new love progresses slowly in this outing, but those who read the Dobbs books know it's in Maisie's nature to take things methodically. Her dad is also making some changes in his life. Readers who like the earlier stories of Maisie dealing with repercussions of the First World War may dislike signs of the next appearing, but Winspear is not allowing Maisie to remain static in a postwar world. Several of the cards are played early in the mystery, but all-in-all I found the story and characters appealing.
In the meantime, Billy Beale works on the case brought to them by Sandra, a young woman whose husband died due to an accident at work. As the story progresses, both Maisie and Billy suspect the accident wasn't one at all. Maisie's old friend Priscilla and her family are drawn into this portion of the story.
Maisie's relationship with her new love progresses slowly in this outing, but those who read the Dobbs books know it's in Maisie's nature to take things methodically. Her dad is also making some changes in his life. Readers who like the earlier stories of Maisie dealing with repercussions of the First World War may dislike signs of the next appearing, but Winspear is not allowing Maisie to remain static in a postwar world. Several of the cards are played early in the mystery, but all-in-all I found the story and characters appealing.
54 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
To me, one of the attractive aspects of Jacqueline Winspears' Maisie Dobbs series is that it is set in the period between the World Wars. In Britain particularly, the loss of a generation of young men is sorely felt as well as the unemployment among the veterans, many of whom were maimed in the trench warfare.
In this, the seventh book in the series, Maisie temporarily leaves her assistant, Billy Beale in charge of her private detective agency to assist the Special Branch in their observation of a peace movement. While the Special Branch is concentrating on Communism, Maisie is concerned with the enthusiasm of the group for the new National Socialist movement in Germany and their leader, Adolph Hitler. Maisie is virtually undercover, teaching at a new college that brings together students from many countries to pursue peace.
This is a worthy addition to the series and shows other aspects of Maisie's life-a growing love affair, the inheritance from her mentor, her concern for Billy and his family still grieving the loss of a child. And there is a murder to be solved.
This book, as the others, brings alive this period and helps show the steps toward a new conflict that seems only dimly in the future. I think this is a worthy series and one I highly recommend for both entertainment and understanding of a most interesting time.
In this, the seventh book in the series, Maisie temporarily leaves her assistant, Billy Beale in charge of her private detective agency to assist the Special Branch in their observation of a peace movement. While the Special Branch is concentrating on Communism, Maisie is concerned with the enthusiasm of the group for the new National Socialist movement in Germany and their leader, Adolph Hitler. Maisie is virtually undercover, teaching at a new college that brings together students from many countries to pursue peace.
This is a worthy addition to the series and shows other aspects of Maisie's life-a growing love affair, the inheritance from her mentor, her concern for Billy and his family still grieving the loss of a child. And there is a murder to be solved.
This book, as the others, brings alive this period and helps show the steps toward a new conflict that seems only dimly in the future. I think this is a worthy series and one I highly recommend for both entertainment and understanding of a most interesting time.
51 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
A series is usually defined by the things that the novels have in common. What's most striking about this series, however, is the element of change -- change in Maisie Dobbs herself, change as other characters die, in Maisie's sense of herself as a professional, the changes in the social and economic laws of gravity in English society, all of these make for an intensely interesting set of books.
And unlike the Charles Todd series with the depressed/dpressing Ian Rutledge, the Maisie Dobbs books give us a character who is forever scarred by the Great War, yes, but who is also capable of moving on.
That said, I have some problems with the direction this move is taking.
Maybe _the_ most fascinating element of these novels has been the tension generated by the English class system. Maisie, who started life as a housemaid, has been extensively sponsored by her employers -- educated, privately at first, then at Cambridge, she is able to start a detective business, to continue her friendship with an upper-class college chum, and to fend off a variety of marriage proposals.
In this novel, however, Maisie seems to be edging into the middle class. Winspeare is British, but she lives in the States now, and I'm wondering if she hasn't caught a bad case of social mobility. Why can Maisie not continue to be an admirable, smart, accomplished working class woman? Why?
Maisie, now a woman of means, has removed herself entirely from any day-to-day problems with money and access, and is beginning to devote herself to philanthropy. If this were linked more to a sense of her own humble beginnings, I'd not object. But when she thinks of herself as as one of a generation of women who inspire the next gen. to seek education and jobs, she fails to mention how fairy-tale fortunate she herself has been. Taking Maisie back to Cambridge as a lecturer is risky on several levels. Even with the strange little made-up college, there's an alarming number of pitfalls here.
This doesn't detract from the 5-star rating, but it does give me pause and makes me concerned about the direction Winspeare is choosing for the series. Maisie seems to have undergone a sea change between this novel and The Mapping of Love and Death. The change is so marked that I looked online to see if I had missed a book.
Change is good, but I'd like to watch it happen.
And unlike the Charles Todd series with the depressed/dpressing Ian Rutledge, the Maisie Dobbs books give us a character who is forever scarred by the Great War, yes, but who is also capable of moving on.
That said, I have some problems with the direction this move is taking.
Maybe _the_ most fascinating element of these novels has been the tension generated by the English class system. Maisie, who started life as a housemaid, has been extensively sponsored by her employers -- educated, privately at first, then at Cambridge, she is able to start a detective business, to continue her friendship with an upper-class college chum, and to fend off a variety of marriage proposals.
In this novel, however, Maisie seems to be edging into the middle class. Winspeare is British, but she lives in the States now, and I'm wondering if she hasn't caught a bad case of social mobility. Why can Maisie not continue to be an admirable, smart, accomplished working class woman? Why?
Maisie, now a woman of means, has removed herself entirely from any day-to-day problems with money and access, and is beginning to devote herself to philanthropy. If this were linked more to a sense of her own humble beginnings, I'd not object. But when she thinks of herself as as one of a generation of women who inspire the next gen. to seek education and jobs, she fails to mention how fairy-tale fortunate she herself has been. Taking Maisie back to Cambridge as a lecturer is risky on several levels. Even with the strange little made-up college, there's an alarming number of pitfalls here.
This doesn't detract from the 5-star rating, but it does give me pause and makes me concerned about the direction Winspeare is choosing for the series. Maisie seems to have undergone a sea change between this novel and The Mapping of Love and Death. The change is so marked that I looked online to see if I had missed a book.
Change is good, but I'd like to watch it happen.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maisie Dobbs
I enjoyed meeting all the characters and am looking forward to reading more in this series. I love it when I find a new cast that rapidly becomes like family to me.
Published 2 days ago by Bobbie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not my cup of tea
I enjoy some period mysteries, especially Dorothy L. Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle. I thought Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs' novels would be a shoo-in for another favorite... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Suzanne MN Fisher
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love that Maisie Dobbs
I noticed I didn't have this book in my home collection so, presto, seearched for it on Amazon; ordered it; had it just days later; and now can re-read this book and get to... Read more
Published 7 days ago by NHR
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good series
I love the setting of the Maisie Dobbs novels. The characters reflect the problems of the time and give the modern world a lesson in true courage.
Published 19 days ago by G. Carol
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughtful approach
I continue to choose Maisie Dobbs for engaging plots with characters who take time to consider their actions. The historic and cultural details add to the charm.
Published 23 days ago by Nanwordsmith
3.0 out of 5 stars
not the best in the series, but intriguing
This was probably the most difficult of all the Maisie Dobbs' books to get through for me. I wound up getting the audio version to finish it. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Elizabeth Slater
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lesson in secrets
This mystery had so many levels and kept me guessing until the end. I loved all the intertwined stories and twists.
Published 27 days ago by Ruth D. B. Brooks
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Lesson In Secrets. A Maisie Dobbs Novel
Another wonderful journey with Maisie Dobbs. Never a disappointment to read about Maisie and her adventures. Read more
Published 27 days ago by Nancy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking and well written
This is another great Maisie Dobbs story. Besides the mystery, there many good philosophical ideas to ponder. I just wish I could get all of them from the digital library.
Published 1 month ago by Elizabeth L. Helms
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Mystery Series!
The Maisie Dobbs mystery series is one of my favorites. All the books in the series are richly layered novels with compelling plots. Read more
Published 1 month ago by C. Anderson
