Historical Mysteries

Winspear leapfrogs the novel back in time to the story of Maisie's girlhood - an incredible intelligence pulls her out of the working class and sends her to university - but the war intrudes, and Maisie finds herself on the front lines as a nurse. This treatment of the war from a female point of view has been handled before - notably by Vera Brittain in her classic, Testament of Youth - but this is very well done, and quite vivid at points. The various threads of the novel - and there are many - are never confusing and are neatly tied up by the end. The actual mystery is probably the weakest part of the book, but the character of Maisie more than makes up for it, and to miss the writing in the first third of the book would be almost criminal. This is a subject not much covered in mystery books - in fact, I think only Charles Todd writes about the same period (though he has recently been joined by Anne Perry) - and this is told from a working class woman's point of view rather than from an upper class male point of view. In either case, WWI was a horrible experience for everyone concerned, and whether it's Winspear or Todd, the picture of the aftermath is a lively one. The character of Maisie is absolutely delectable - don't miss making her acquaintance.