4.5 stars. I enjoyed this book so much. I just love Maisie. She’s an empath and has an extra dose of intuition, making her perfect to head up her own small detective agency. I wish I could slip into her shoes and into her era. Just for a week or so.

I really enjoy many of the other recurring characters too. Her assistant is a favorite, as well as her dad and a few others. ( I don’t want to throw any spoilers.)

The audiobook performance was also very good, and I enjoy the British setting (as always) and the historical context. This one is set not long after WWI, and I always learn something of historical importance along the way, too. I was genuinely surprised by the resolution, another big plus!

I want to thank Lisa once again for writing such enthusiastic reviews about this series and encouraging me to take it up again. I’ll be reading the third book soon!

Fun Read

I enjoyed this book and all the characters involved.

Descriptions were certainly delightful holiday travel throughout England, the other touched on fine details

Truly a good book

I so want to like this series. I feel like I should like this series, that I’m the target audience and there is something wrong with me that I don’t like this series. But I don’t like Maisie Dobbs. At all. She’s a cold, self-centered woman with few redeeming qualities and the good fortune to be fictional and therefore able to ignore her numerous failings due to an author who wants to make her something wonderful. In short, she’s the literary equivalent of a spoiled, lazy, not-at-all bright teenager who gets into Harvard because of a legacy. After finishing this book, I made a list of what I didn’t like about this book (don’t worry, it’s not exhaustive) so that, whenever I start to think I should give this series another chance, I can read this list and remember why that would be a waste of good reading. What follows contains some small spoilers, but since I don’t think the book is worth reading, I don’t feel particularly bad about possibly ruining this book (seriously, don’t read it):

1. I don’t care how many times an author tells me a character is smart. That doesn’t convince me. Show me a character is smart. I can say I’m 6’1” all I want, but that doesn’t make me 6’1”.
2. On a related note, when a character is supposed to be smart, don’t drop massive clues, have said character ignore said clues for one hundred pages, and then suddenly remember them when it’s convenient for the story. That makes the character looks stupid.
3. When an author bases a scene or resolution off what one character says or does, please make sure said action would make a normal person step back and go “yep, understand why that would evoke that reaction.” Having a character go into a murderous rampage because someone gives him a slice of cake doesn’t make sense unless it’s explained, for example, that the government programmed that person to go into a murderous rampage if served cake. As a reader, I want to understand a book. I don’t want to have to create my own explanations to make a plot or scene work.
4. When a murderer snaps several years after an event, it’d be nice to know what set him off.
5. I like suspense - but only if used properly. When used properly, it’s a great addition to a story. When not used correctly (like when the information being withheld ties in directly to the title of the book and in no way reveals the denouement – say, for example, identical feathers found at crime scenes in a book titled Birds of a Feather), it just makes a story tedious. Put another way: Not immediately revealing who owned the knife found at the murder scene and not revealing related information that would give away the mystery? Good use of suspense. Waiting one hundred pages to reveal a knife was the murder weapon (and treating it as super mysterious) when it doesn’t reveal anything and is easy to figure out with the information given? Not a good use of suspense.
6. Love triangles are overused, but, when used correctly, I always forgive the overuse and eagerly lap up the drama. However, crucifying one character to build a triangle, telling the audience why they should like a character without giving any examples as to why, and using the device as a way to put in a cheap, unnecessary cliffhanger are not acceptable uses of a love triangle - and remind me why I’d like them to become the exception rather than the rule in storytelling.
7. Also, if an author must have a love triangle in a story, it’d be nice if the person at the center does not seem like a cold, heartless fish. As a reader, I want to understand why two men are attracted to one woman and both pursue her. Telling me that Betsy is a vicarious, funny woman doesn’t convince me she is (especially when the book contains no examples of that) and doesn’t show me why two men are fighting over her. Said conflict is even more difficult to believe when the author points out (repeatedly) that the story is set in post-WWI England and available women outnumber men by a considerable degree.
8. Using “feelings” to advance a story. Nope. Sorry. Yes, I’m all about rooms giving off a certain vibe and going off gut instincts. But when an author uses meditation and mysticism in place of actual investigating, I don’t like it. It seems cheap.
9. Emotional scenes put in for no reason other than to take up page space and make a character seem deep. Nope. Don’t do it. Especially when an author can’t even let that melodramatic story tell itself – excerpts of brief, meaningless conversations about a problem suddenly invented are not fun to read and do not move me to any emotion other than annoyance.
10. If a character is suffering from a drug addiction and withdrawal, there needs to be some actual consequence. Having them absolutely fine whenever they are needed? Weak. I want consequences! Under this logic, Achilles still had a weak heel but it didn’t matter, and he won anyway. What’s the point of that?

Those are the major points about why I didn’t like this book. To boil it all down (and I could have put this earlier, but certain books just bring out a need to rant): Like the first one, this has all of the pieces of a good mystery but the actual product is not good. I can’t quite believe such a great premise is not only so badly executed but has spanned an (as of 2011) eight-book series. What am I missing? That’s the real mystery. Not recommended.

A new year, a new office and a new assistant are featured in #2 of the Maisie Dobbs series. Women's issues, murder, substance abuse in the 1930’s and the impact of war losses on families are part of the mystery. Likable, plucky and intelligent Maisie is up to the task.

Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, is asked to try and find a businessman’s daughter. Maisie is dubious about the case because she suspects Mr Waite’s motives as his daughter, Charlotte, is an adult and cannot be compelled to return to her father’s home. When she realises that the name of a recent murder victim is one of the friends listed in Charlotte’s address book Maisie is very worried about the case.

This is a thought provoking mystery set in the nineteen twenties where the shadow of World War I is still lying heavy on many people including Maisie. There are interesting characters and motivations and a well drawn historical background. Maisie is battling with her uneasy relationship with her father and her own position in society which is unusual. Her business is helping her to establish herself and Billy Beale, her assistant is settling into his job and proving his worth.

If you like your crime novels with added depth and then try this series. Maisie herself has many interesting qualities and is developing into a well-rounded person with problems of her own to solve. I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple or Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher.

I rarely give mysteries four stars, however this one deserves the rating. Maisie Dobbs practices meditation which allows her to focus and retain information, both of which come across as following her intuition (which she does as well). Her practice also allows her to demonstrate compassion for those who she encounters during her investigations.

I love the Maisie Dobbs books as I feel like I'm spending time with a friend whenever I read one. I appreciate the lyrical descriptions the author uses to tell her story.

However, I didn't care for the story line in this book as much as I did in the first. For once I sympathized with the murderer and it made it hard for me to feel compassion for the murders that were committed. I guess I prefer my murderers to be the traditional 'bad guy'. But I do enjoy reading these books so will look for the next in the series very soon.

This was the most well written heart breaking story I have read. Just daggers straight to the heart.

Hm... maybe Maisie is starting to grow on me! Find out from my #bookreview here if she is or she isn't. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2022/06/1...

Have you ever stayed up late to finish a book not because you're enjoying it but because you want to put yourself out of some misery? That's this novel. This was a real struggle to finish. It's not awful, but it shows none of the command of characters, plot, action, really - everything that matters in a great novel - that the first Maisie Dobbs book I encountered possessed. I read Leaving Everything Most Loved last year and enjoyed it immensely, snatching up this one for my to-read list and got around it to it a couple of weeks ago. Based on LEML, I was expecting Maisie to be the same interesting and different from the usual-British-PI character other authors have created, and I was expecting a mystery that made sense, and was neither too difficult nor too easy to figure out, and supporting characters that were authentic. Silly me, I thought, if book 10 is good, book 1 must be excellent. Don't make the same mistake. Some writers don't hit their stride for awhile, whether due to editing, finding their voice, or whatever, and Winspear is in this camp.

Back to Birds of a Feather. Maisie spends the entire novel traveling from place to place. The emphasis on feeling the vibes in this place or that made her seem quacky and not intelligent, in contrast to the Maisie we encounter in later books in the series. I didn't buy the actions of the target of her investigation, Charlotte, at all, because they seemed to serve only as a plot device and not consistent with how a real person in the same context would behave. The various male characters were not believable - from Maisie's father to Inspector Stratton to Waite, the man who engages Maisie on this investigation. Harumph is all I can say, although I suppose I've said substantially more.

I really enjoyed this next installment in the Maisie Dobbs series. The mystery was interwoven with the historical fiction side very well and I loved seeing the little hints of a romance starting… can’t wait to keep going in this series!

This is the second book in the Maisie Dobbs series and I liked it even better than the first, and I liked it a lot. Maisie is not your every day detective. She operates under a strong moral code prompting the Abbess of a convent to tell her: “I’ve come to wonder Maisie, if our work is so different. We are both concerned with questions . . . investigation . . . and we are witnesses to confession. . . We are both faced with the challenge of doing and saying what is right when the burden of truth is placed on our shoulders.”

Winspear does a good job structuring her story, so that I was kept in suspense until the end figuring out who the murderer was. I love all the interesting colloquial expressions and historical information of that period such as “walking out together” which means dating and Maisie’s assistant Billy calling his kids “nippers.” I’d never heard of the Order Of The White Feather, which plays a significant role in this story. A White Feather is a traditional symbol of cowardice used within the British Army and in countries associated with the British Empire since the 18th century.

I don’t know if anyone else experienced this, but reading this book made me incredibly thirsty. Every time Maisie meets with other characters to either interview them or relay information, it’s over tea. I didn’t keep count, but Maisie consumed dozens of cups of tea throughout the course of the novel. Loved it! And now I think I’m going to have a nice cup of licorice spice—one of my favorites!