Spring 1937. In the four years since she left England, Maisie Dobbs has experienced love, contentment, stability -- and the deepest tragedy a woman can endure. Now, all she wants is the peace she believes she might find by returning to India. But her sojourn in the hills of Darjeeling is cut short when her stepmother summons her home to England; her aging father Frankie Dobbs is not getting any younger. But on a ship bound for England, Maisie realizes she isn't ready to return. Against the wishes of the captain who warns her, "You will be alone in a most dangerous place," she disembarks in Gibraltar. Though she is on her own, Maisie is far from alone: the British garrison town is teeming with refugees fleeing a brutal civil war across the border in Spain. Yet the danger is very real. Days after Maisie's arrival, a photographer and member of Gibraltar's Sephardic Jewish community, Sebastian Babayoff, is murdered, and Maisie becomes entangled in the case, drawing the attention of the British Secret Service. Under the suspicious eye of a British agent, Maisie is pulled deeper into political intrigue on "the Rock"--Arguably Britain's most important strategic territory -- and renews an uneasy acquaintance in the process. At a crossroads between her past and her future, Maisie must choose a direction, knowing that England is, for her, an equally dangerous place, but in quite a different way.
I have long been a fan of the Maisie Dobbs series, though I sort of fell away from them a couple of years ago. I was behind the curve anyway - getting them from the library and coming to them late. So I have missed the last couple of books before this one came out. On one hand, I was worried that events in this book would make it apparent how out of touch I was. On the other hand, I think that coming to this new one with sort of "fresh" eyes helped the reading a little bit.
Maisie is, well, struggling. She has undergone some huge and heartbreaking changes recently. I will say no more about that, as I do not want any spoilers. Suffice to say, she is not the usual Maisie Dobbs - but more of a shadow of her former self. This does not detract from the story, however - it is written in quite well. In this book, we find Maisie sort of running away from facing her changes and she ends up in Gibraltar, a place on the cusp of war. She ends up running across a body (It *is* Maisie Dobbs, after all...) and insists on attempting to find peace, both for the dead and for his relatives. As she does, more than a few hornet's nests are stirred up - potentially involving the war itself.
I find I continue to like Maisie as a character. The mystery this go around seems a little more...convenient...in places than I remember, but it is still a good story overall. It certainly didn't detract from my reading, nor convince me to stop. And while it's not a terribly cerebral book, it is excellent reading for an escape. Beach reading OR by the fireplace with a cuppa kind of reading!
So, I will stick with Maisie Dobbs and watch from the comfort of my couch as she continues to do what she does best...help those who cannot help themselves.
