Journey to Munich

Listeners can continue to follow Maisie Dobbs--investigator and psychologist--as her life and adventures evolve just before WWII. It's a knack to keep a long-running series fresh, and narrator Orlagh Cassidy definitely plays a significant role with her portraits of Maisie and her familiar friends and colleagues--Inspector Robbie MacFarlane's Scottish burr is just as thick as ever, posh friend Priscilla's mothering just as bossy. The passage of time through the series always makes the historical context interesting. New circumstances challenge Maisie as she's sent to Munich during Hitler's early rise to power. A good deal of backstory is supplied to help listeners enter the series. Cassidy's warm narration, with its clear emotional connection to the characters and events, makes this another winner. R.F.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

May 30, 2016
Cassidy is the perfect voice for Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs adventures. It’s 1938, and Maisie has returned to England after a time in Spain working as a nurse in that war-torn country. She’s still mourning the death of her husband, and her future is unclear. She accepts an assignment from the government to travel to Munich in the guise of Edwina Donant, whose father, Leon Donant, a British engineer of great military importance, is being held in Dachau. The Nazis will only release Donant to a family member, and the engineer’s only relative, his daughter, is too ill to travel. In addition to her official assignment, Maisie reluctantly accepts a second rescue mission, one with a more personal connection. In Germany, Maisie discovers that both missions hold their own intricacies and dangers. One wrong move could mean the difference between life and death. Cassidy is completely comfortable depicting Maisie’s world. Her clear English delivery moves the intriguing and suspenseful story along at a smooth, steady pace. At the same time, she easily juggles a diverse, multinational array of characters, each with their own distinctive accents and personalities. A Harper hardcover.

January 25, 2016
Winspear’s subpar 12th Maisie Dobbs novel (after 2015’s A Dangerous Place) finds Maisie still struggling with a double tragedy. Her beloved husband, James, died during the test of an experimental fighter plane, and the shock of witnessing the accident caused Maisie to miscarry. Meanwhile, the British Secret Service taps her for a mission into Nazi Germany on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938. Engineer Leon Donat is being held in Dachau after being arrested for involvement in the production of an underground newspaper. The Germans agree to release Donat but only to a family member. Since his one surviving relative, his grown daughter, is seriously ill, Maisie is to impersonate her to gain Donat’s freedom. As if that assignment isn’t perilous enough, Maisie also agrees to look for a woman who has disappeared in Munich, the person who should have piloted the fighter instead of James. Maisie is unconvincing as an undercover operative, and the plot relies too heavily on contrivances. Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency.

October 1, 2015

In early 1938, Maisie Dobbs is strolling toward London's Fitzroy Square when she is cut off by two secret service agents. A British subject is being released from prison in Germany, but the German government insists on handing him over to a family member. His wife is severely ill, but his dead daughter is a dead ringer for Maisie, who's asked to impersonate her. The last two Maisie mysteries, debuted in the No. 4 spot on the New York Times best sellers list.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2016
On an undercover mission for the British Secret Service in Nazi Germany, Maisie Dobbs must face not only the horrors of the Third Reich, but very real reminders of her own tragic past. It's 1938, and Maisie is finally back in England following a stint as a nurse in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (A Dangerous Place, 2015). Her homeland still holds the ghosts of her former life with her late husband, James, who died in a plane crash. Distraction comes in the form of a summons from the British government and her old friend Robert MacFarlane, for whom she's done clandestine work in the past. This time, Maisie is asked to travel to Munich as Edwina Donat, the daughter of Leon Donat, a wealthy British industrialist and publisher who's been wrongfully imprisoned in Dachau. Donat is of great value to the British government, and the secret service has secured his release but only if his daughter--the real one is too ill--is the one to fetch him. Maisie can more than handle herself, even against the Fuhrer and his omnipresent SS men, and after MacFarlane gives her a quick lesson in firearms, she's off. Complicating things is Elaine Otterburn, the woman Maisie blames for James' death. Convinced by the influential Otterburns to persuade the hard-partying Elaine to return home from Munich, Maisie discovers that Elaine may be entangled in something more dangerous than just drinking with the Gestapo. Winspear elegantly balances Maisie's emotional turmoil and dogged patriotism with the growing tensions of a Europe on the brink of war.

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March 15, 2016
Maisie Dobbs proves herself wily and fiercely determined again in this twelfth series entry, set in 1938, as she faces down another formidable enemy and some of her own personal demons. Happy with Maisie's previous successful mission (A Dangerous Place, 2015), British intelligence, again exercising its penchant for using civilian spies in the pre-WWII era, sends Maisie to retrieve Leon Donat, an elderly businessman accused of sedition, from Nazi clutches in Dachau. While Maisie's in Germany, an acquaintance hopes she will convince his daughter to leave her Nazi lover and return to England. In every way, things are a bit more complicated than anticipated, and our indomitable spy lands in a tight spot. A miasma of hatred, suspicion, and uncertainty pervades, and the inconsistencies in many characters' behavior highlight the fine moral line that, in wartime, is constantly shifting. A sense of melancholy and world-weariness makes this entry a little darker than others in the series. Readers who like this subtle mood shift may also enjoy Sarah R. Shaber's Louise Pearlie mysteries, and Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Voguel novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)