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Maisie Dobbs
 
 

Maisie Dobbs (Paperback)

by Jacqueline Winspear (Author)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Maisie Dobbs + Birds of a Feather + Pardonable Lies (Maisie Dobbs Mystery 3)
Price For All Three: £15.13

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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: John Murray; New edition edition (7 Feb 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0719566223
  • ISBN-13: 978-0719566226
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 41,109 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

New Woman

'Even if detective stories aren't your thing, you'll love Maisie Dobbs'


Review

‘In Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear has given us a real gift. Maisie Dobbs has not been created - she has been discovered. Such people are always there amongst us, waiting for somebody like Ms. Winspear to come along and reveal them. And what a revelation it is!’

(Alexander McCall Smith )

'It's a long time since I've read a crime novel that begins as well as Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs ... well written ... [Jacqueline Winspear] is set fair for a very bright future as a crime novelist.' (Simon Brett, Daily Mail )

'Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs is a welcome addition to the sleuthing scene. Simultaneously self-reliant and vulnerable, Maisie isn’t a character I’ll easily forget' (Elizabeth George )

'Readers sensing a story-within-a-story won't be disappointed. But first, they must prepare to be astonished at the sensitivity and wisdom with which Maisie resolves her first professional assignment' (New York Times )

'A wry and immensely readable beginning to what promises to be a vivid new addition to crime fiction' (Mail on Sunday )

'Even if detective stories aren't your thing, you'll love Maisie Dobbs' (New Woman )

'The book is much more than a cosy mystery - it is also about women's growing emancipation and the profound changes to society after the First World War.' (Mail on Sunday's You )

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Not Exactly Agatha Christie, 11 Mar 2006
By Charlie_Crocker (Hull, East Riding United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
With its Art Deco type front and the word mystery liberally splattered across the jacket, I expected this to be a rival to the Poirot series. In that respect, I was mightily disappointed - the mystery (such as it is) is only evident at the beginning and the end of the book.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed the middle portion, with its vivid detail and descriptions of Maisie's early years. Particularly evocative were the passages on the Great War and its long lasting effects on those who returned.
A slight annoyance was the cockernee chirpiness of some of the characters, who were a bit too Dick Van Dyke-ish for me. However, that alone would not put me off buying the next in the series.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars The Debut of an Interwar Nancy Drew, 18 Mar 2006
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
By rights, I'm just the right reader for this book: I love mysteries (especially British ones), I find WWI fascinating, I find the interwar era and the whole "upstairs-downstairs" British class stuff interesting. And yet...while mildly diverting and obviously well-researched, this first book in a series about a plucky young female investigator/psychologist really didn't work for me. It's written as if the intended readership were 10-14 year-old girls, which is fine, but as an adult, it's hard to find Nancy Drewish escapades of a flawless heroine all that fulfilling.

The framework is a little unconventional (though not the disaster some reviewers make it out to be): the first part of the book introduces us to 20something Maisie Dobbs, just opening her business in London. Her first case is a classic assignment: a man who is worried his wife is cheating on him wants Maisie to check into it. As her investigation unfolds there are allusions to Maisie's past and a mysterious mentor, but nothing is spelled out. Suddenly, the story drifts back in time to 1910 or so, and we are reintroduced to a younger Maisie as she enters service as a housemaid for an aristocratic family. We follow dutifully along as her employers discover her reading Latin in the library and extend their patronage, allowing her to be tutored by their strange friend (and apparent spy) Maurice, and eventually supporting her bid to go to Cambridge (Girton College). Despite success at school, when World War I starts, she decides to join the Red Cross, and eventually serves as a nurse in France, where she witnesses the horror of war.

The final third of the book then shifts back the the postwar era, and Maisie's patron asks her help in a family matter. This all dovetails with her earlier case, as well as the war and the scars (psychic and physical) left by the war. The mystery isn't substantial enough to satisfy most fans of the genre, and anyone with any discernment is going to find the climax painfully bad. (All I'll say is that involves singing...) As a detective, Maisie isn't particularly compelling -- her technique is a mix of keen observation and psychology. However, she's even less compelling as a character. Maisie's one of those plucky underdogs designed to provoke maximum reader projection: born into semi-poverty, raised by single father, highly intelligent, uncommonly perceptive, always composed, humble, beloved by all, and possessing big violet eyes. She's the kind of character everyone likes to imagine they would be, had they lived in that time and been born into those circumstances. The supporting cast is fairly pat: vegetable-seller father (with a heart of gold), feisty upper-class patroness (with a heart of gold), prim butler (with a heart of gold), plump cook (with a heart of gold), Cockney handyman/sidekick (with a heart of gold), etc...

The book isn't bad (except for the climax, which is terrible), it's just not very satisfying for adult readers looking for complex characters and a meaty plot. It suffers from feeling very much like a book designed to establish setting and characters for a series. I may read onward in the series (the next two are Birds of a Feather and Pardonable Lies), but may wait for the inevitable BBC TV series this will spawn.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Not Exactly Agatha Christie, 11 Mar 2006
By Charlie_Crocker (Hull, East Riding United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
With its Art Deco type front and the word mystery liberally splattered across the jacket, I expected this to be a rival to the Poirot series. In that respect, I was mightily disappointed - the mystery (such as it is) is only evident at the beginning and the end of the book.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed the middle portion, with its vivid detail and descriptions of Maisie's early years. Particularly evocative were the passages on the Great War and its long lasting effects on those who returned.
A slight annoyance was the cockernee chirpiness of some of the characters, who were a bet to Dick Van Dyke-ish for me. However, that alone would not put me off buying the next in the series.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Walking wounded from the war
The first of a series of detective mysteries set in England between the two world wars and certainly promises to garner a strong following of crime readers and indeed anyone who... Read more
Published 20 months ago by R. Nicholson-morton

4.0 out of 5 stars A flawed but enjoyable read
I'd prefer to review this along with the second book, Birds of a Feather, simultaneously, because I thought that there were problems with the first book which the author had... Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2007 by LindyB

2.0 out of 5 stars Upstairs-Downstairs Rehash
A broken-backed book which will satisfy neither the crime-reader nor the family-saga reader. Messily it falls between two stools. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2006 by Philip Cooper

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had hoped for
like the other reviewers I was really looking forward to this - but Maisie is just an unbelievable character. Read more
Published on 25 Jul 2006 by A. J. Barclay

3.0 out of 5 stars Bright woman investigates in post-war England
Maisie Dobbs is a unique character. With the intelligence for bigger and greater things, she rises from a house maid to a university student. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2006 by Clarence T. Henry

3.0 out of 5 stars Fails to deliver?
A promising start, a female private detective, set in post first world war Britain, with an interesting history and as traumatised by the war as those she investigates. Read more
Published on 28 Dec 2005 by jude2go

1.0 out of 5 stars Never judge a book by its cover - or blurb
I rarely give up on a book and, therefore, my criticism of this book may be deemed unfair having made it to page 99 only but the neat coincidences, one dimensional characters and... Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2005

1.0 out of 5 stars Chlichéd detective story
Young, working-class Maisie Dobbs sets up a detective agency in 1920s London. In good crime literature tradition, her first case forces her to confront demons from her own past as... Read more
Published on 27 May 2005

5.0 out of 5 stars Very entertaining
Although I haven't quite finished, I'm totally enthralled, and I don't really want it to end. Maisie is perhaps a little larger than life, but the sort of person you want on your... Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2005

5.0 out of 5 stars Award winning first novel
What a delight this novel is. Part crime, part romance, part social history and above all else packed with great characters. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2004 by Rick Scott

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