MAISIE DOBBS

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of eighteen novels in the award-winning, New York Times, national and international bestselling series featuring psychologist-investigator Maisie Dobbs. In addition, Jacqueline’s 2023 non-series novel, The White Lady, was a New York Times and national bestseller, and her 2014 WWI novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was again a New York Times and national bestseller and Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do? and an Edgar-nominated memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing.

“Compelling . . . powerful. Maisie Dobbs testifies to the enduring allure of the traditional mystery . . . even though I knew what was coming this second time ’round, its final scene is still a punch in the gut.” —NPR, Fresh Air

“A deft debut . . . Be prepared to be astonished at the sensitivity and wisdom with which Maisie resolves her first professional assignment.”  —The New York Times

“Winspear has created a winning character about whom readers will want to read more.” —The Associated Press

“Maisie Dobbs catches the sorrow of a lost generation in the character of one exceptional woman.” —Chicago Tribune

“A fine new sleuth for the twenty-first century. Simultaneously self-reliant and vulnerable, Maisie isn’t a character I’ll easily forget.” —Elizabeth George, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of the Inspector Lynley series

1. Maisie Dobbs is set during and after World War I, or the Great War—the centennial anniversary of which was marked in 2014. World War I is often thought of as the first modern war, the first conflict of such sophisticated weaponry and catastrophic human casualty that its repercussions are still very much felt today. How have conversations about warfare and armed combat changed in the last hundred years? How have they stayed the same? Do any of the soldiers’ stories in the book chime with stories you may have heard about veterans of more recent wars? Do you think new diagnoses, like PTSD, have changed postwar recovery for combat soldiers significantly, or is there still more work that can be done?

2. On the nameplate on her new office door, Maisie decides to call herself m. dobbs, psychologist and investigator. How is Maisie each of those things? Where does Maisie’s interpretation of being a psychologist overlap with our modern interpretation, and where is it different? How important or helpful do you think a background in psychology is for solving mysteries? What other fictional detectives use psychological profiling and empathetic interview techniques? What are some of the alternatives to psychological intuition employed by fictional detectives to crack cases?

3. What obstacles does Maisie have to surmount, both personally and professionally, because she is a woman? How does her feminine identity influence her professional demeanor and investigative style? How do the obstacles of gender in the novel contrast with the obstacles of class?

4. Throughout most of the novel, the facial disfigurement of the veterans who join the colony at the Retreat generates sympathy for them. However, at a climactic moment in the story, their wounds are used to make them appear monstrous and inhuman: “With their damaged faces, once so very dear to a mother, father, or sweetheart, they were now reduced to gargoyles by a war that, for them, had never ended” (p. 262). In the story, and elsewhere, for that matter, can sympathy and repulsion exist comfortably side by side, or must one eventually triumph?

5. Despite the sinister nature of the Retreat, Billy Beale initially finds the compound somewhat attractive and feels respect for Adam Jenkins. Why?

6. The novel offers two very different examples of love during wartime: Enid and John Compton’s throw-all-caution-to-the-winds love affair, and Maisie and Simon Lynch’s more careful growing friendship. Whose approach to risky love do you think is healthier, Enid’s or Maisie’s? Do you relate more to Enid’s decision to get so deeply involved with a man she might lose, or Maisie’s decision to keep Simon at arm’s length until after the war?

7. What is your response to the ending of the novel, particularly the last meeting between Simon and Maisie? Is Maisie more focused on her suffering or Simon’s?