An Incomplete Revenge

Jacqueline Winspear's portrayal of an unusually complicated woman was the best yet of any of the Masie Dobbs mysteries. taking place in post war England. Maisie is caught up in a mystery surrounding a country village, and what seemed like planned arson. The complexity of Winspear's characters provided a many-faceted tale of suspence. Maisie's asistant, a war vereran and young father who was shattered both physically and mentally was hired by Maisie, and proved his worth in many instances. Maisie grew up motherless, became a nurse, and with a knowledge of human nature gleaned from her service, along with a natural curiosity, became a detective with the tutelage of her mentor. Each one of the Maisie Dobbs stories stands on its own but I have benefitted by beginning from the first of its series and reading each of the books from the first to the last. I haven't overlooked the historical value of all her books, which is one of their most interesting aspects.

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.

Over the course of four previous novels, Jacqueline Winspear's heroine, Maisie Dobbs, has developed into one of the most complex and compelling female sleuths in current mystery fiction. A former World War I nurse simultaneously struggling to cope with the ongoing legacy of what she saw and experienced in that horrible war while trying to get her fledgling investigation business off the ground in London, Maisie has emerged as a fully developed, intriguing character. Appealingly contemporary in her personality, credibly part of her time and place (thanks in no small part to Winspear's impeccable historical research), Maisie Dobbs's fans read these books as much for insights into this absorbing heroine as for the engaging mystery plots the author constructs. AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE, Winspear's fifth outing, will not disappoint readers, with its skillful intersection of character development, historical detail and intricate plotting. The novel opens with Maisie seemingly making a fresh start after the tumultuous events of her previous investigation (recounted in MESSENGER OF TRUTH), a deeply personal case that forced her to confront events of the war but left her estranged from her longtime friend and mentor. Maisie's newfound happiness, though, is tempered by economic pressures, as the worldwide depression of the early 1930s affects her business prospects in London. When an old family friend asks for her help in investigating some potential business acquisitions in Kent, Maisie leaps at the opportunity to enhance her personal financial situation while visiting with her beloved father. By coincidence, Maisie's long-time assistant Billy is also in the area, participating in the annual hop-picking with his family. It turns out, however, that Maisie will need every bit of Billy's help, her own ingenuity and even the assistance of some most unlikely allies --- the gypsies who also make annual pilgrimages to the region for the hop-picking --- to solve the multi-layered mysteries that haunt this small Kentish village. During her investigation of a series of petty crimes, including arson, that plague the village and the brickworks her friend is interested in acquiring, Maisie soon suspects that the events are hardly the work of small-time thieves or petty vandals. Instead, as she delves into the inhabitants' history of heartbreak, loss and suspicion, she begins to suspect a much more widespread, and sinister, force is at work --- one that, like her own heartbreak, dates back to the catastrophic events of the Great War. Set during the turbulent, evocative years between the wars, the Maisie Dobbs series delves into the gaping holes left by one war while exploring the roots of another on the horizon. AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE does a particularly masterful job of this, as Winspear explores how the prejudice inspired by one conflict leads to the insularity, fear and prejudice that can spark another. As for Maisie, the character who readers will eagerly return to

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 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