Tag: Jacqueline Winspear

A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Historical Mystery, Part of a Series, World War II Era (1939-1945)2 Comments

A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs #17)

Barbara’s rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Series: Maisie Dobbs #17
Publication Date: 3/27/22
Period: 1942 – WWII
Number of Pages: 366

The previous books in this series have spanned 3 decades and two world wars. I will admit that I was not a fan of the first books in the series – not because they weren’t wonderful stories, but because Maisie seemed to have the saddest life of anyone I’ve ever seen and that just wasn’t for me. These later books have a more settled Maisie and the mysteries are just as good as those in the beginning. So, a win-win for me.

With Germany bombing England every evening, Maisie is spending most of her time away from London. Not just because of the bombings, but because she wants to spend more time with her newly adopted daughter and her handsome hunk of an American diplomat. While in London, Maisie is approached by a young woman who is a ferry pilot responsible for delivering planes among the various British bases. Jo Hardy was flying a Spitfire to Biggin Hill when she realized someone was shooting at her. Surely not! This comes on the heels of learning her beloved fiancé has died in a crash – with no apparent reason for it. Later, the young woman went back to the site where she had been fired upon and discovered a young American soldier bound and gagged in the barn.

Days later, a good friend of Jo’s – another ferry pilot – is killed flying the same route as Jo had flown. While the official ruling was ‘pilot error’, Jo was quite certain that it wasn’t – and that her fiancé’s crash, Jo’s incident, and her friend’s crash were all related somehow. At the suggestion of another friend, Jo seeks out Maisie Dobbs and lays out her case. Maisie, of course, is intrigued and begins her investigation.

As the investigation progresses, Maisie begins to think maybe there is more than one case – and one of those sets of circumstances seems to cross paths with Maisie’s American diplomat husband (Mark Scott) who is responsible for the American First Lady who will be visiting soon. Are the cases related? Is there more than one case?

Interwoven with the fast-paced mystery is a bit of a mystery and strife in Maisie’s homelife. That home life highlights the circumstances those within England must confront daily. Are there spies within their midst? Are those people who look different or have strange-sounding names sympathizers of Hitler?

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the mystery contained within as well as the characters who are wonderfully relatable. The story also highlighted American racist attitudes. I don’t question those, and it makes me ill to have borne witness to the treatment of the black American soldier. I think the author took great pains to subtly portray American racism for the vile thing it is – but – when it came to the English prejudices, it was a few villagers who had lost sons/husbands, etc. and their prejudice was toward the Italians, French, etc. because of that.

This is a great story, with strong, compelling characters and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

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Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

On By BarbaraIn Audiobook, Barb's Reviews, Historical Mystery, World War I Era (1914-1920)5 Comments

Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1)Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Series: Maisie Dobbs #1
Publication Date: 7/1/03 (Audio Version)
Period: WWI England
Narrator: Rita Barrington

I came into this series by reading book sixteen, The Consequences of Fear, and wanted to know more about how Maisie Dobbs became who she is. My solution to that was to read this first book in the series and then decide if I wanted to read all of the others. After reading this really sad, heartbreaking book, I read all of the book blurbs on the remainder of the books in the series and I came to the conclusion that Maisie Dobbs had the darkest, saddest life of anyone I’ve ever read. So, I’m going to skip all of those earlier books and perhaps try number eighteen when it comes out. Maybe that one will be less dark and sad.

I think, for me, this book might have suffered from having the writing be too good. Yes, I know – how can that be? I suppose it really can’t, but what I mean is – the research is so thorough and the writing so well done that you feel as if you are right there in the middle of the battlefield, or that you can actually see that terribly disfigured soldier as he tries to deal with his return to a society who really doesn’t want to see him. It just makes you feel it all – and the ending – it is one of the saddest things I’ve read.

The narrator, Rita Barrington, did a nice enough job, but it didn’t come out as a smooth steady flow of words as you’d picture a conversation. It sounded more like she was reading – which, of course, she was, but I didn’t want to hear it that way. As far as a distinct voice for each character goes – they all sounded like iterations of the narrator’s natural voice. If a character spoke without identifying themselves, I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish which character it was.

The mystery in this book has to do with deaths at a ‘farm’ where returning soldiers with terrible facial disfigurement go to live so they can avoid the stares among the public. However, the mystery doesn’t take up a large portion of the book. It is a good mystery, but still, the largest portion of the book is the set-up for the series. We are introduced to Maisie’s background, family, and friends as well as showing her war experiences.

This book broke my heart and made me very sad. I actually wish I had stopped reading well before the end – maybe just after the mystery was solved – because I honestly didn’t want to see the rest. Was it realistic? Probably. Was it something I wanted to read or know? Absolutely not.

So, I would never read this book a second time, but I am glad I now know Maisie’s background. If you don’t mind gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, grossly sad books, you’ll probably enjoy the read more than I did. Still, it is well written.

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