maisie dobbs birds of a feather two novels jacqueline winspear

Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone-food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II. And the sudden death of Maisie’s vigorous father further tests her mettle and endangers the investigation.Ī standard-issue mystery enhanced by elegant prose and a strong period flavor. The drugs Billy takes for his pain lead to erratic behavior that concerns both Maisie and his devoted wife Doreen and makes him a suspect in Miss Fisher’s murder. And there are further unwelcome complications. The search gains urgency when Charlotte’s friend Lydia Fisher is found murdered and both women are tied to the Coulsdon case. Sensing unhappiness in clues left behind by the young woman of her own age, Maisie feels a special affinity for her. Meanwhile, she’s hired by wealthy Joseph Waite to find Charlotte, his missing daughter, with whom he’s had a stormy relationship. When London is gripped by the unsolved murder of a young woman in Coulsdon, Maisie verbally spars over the case with courtly Inspector Stratton, who displays both professional and romantic interest in her. Still, memories and flashbacks of her heroic days as a WWI nurse frequently interrupt her current pursuits even as war veteran Billy Beale, Maisie’s hard-working assistant, puts a brave face on the persistent pain he still suffers from a battle injury. It’s 1930s London, and sleuth Maisie Dobbs is coping with painful personal woes while tracking a devious multiple murderer.Ī year after hanging out her shingle as a private investigator ( Maisie Dobbs, 2003), Maisie is relieved to have a thriving business in new and nicer quarters.

Maisie dobbs birds of a feather two novels jacqueline winspear