A Lesson in Secrets

Winspear's mysteries are audiobook territory in which to lose oneself--irrevocably and delightfully. Maisie Dobbs, an unconventional detective/ psychologist who served as a WWI nurse, responds to an appeal from Scotland Yard to go undercover as a Cambridge professor for the purpose of investigating secret political activities and subterfuge on the eve of WWII. Orlagh Cassidy shines as the intrepid Maisie. Her crystal-clear British accent deftly segues into German, French, American, and Scottish accents when needed. All the story's pivotal personas and period authenticity are believable and striking. Masterfully juggling several plot threads, including Maisie's clandestine professorial job, a tumultuous romance, and the suspicious death of her secretary's young husband, Cassidy delivers an engaging listen. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

January 31, 2011
In Winspear's solid eighth Maisie Dobbs novel (after The Mapping of Love and Death), Maisie finds herself financially independent, thanks to a bequest from her late mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche, and open to new challenges exactly at the moment the British Secret Service seeks to recruit her in 1932. Greville Liddicote, the author of a pacifist children's book that the government went to great pains to suppress during WWI, has founded a college in Cambridge devoted to maintaining peace in Europe. To keep tabs on Liddicote, Maisie infiltrates his school under the guise of a philosophy teacher. When a staff member is murdered, she reverts to her old profession and works to aid the police inquiry from the inside. Maisie's new affluence allows her to intervene benevolently in the lives of those she cares for and her romantic life intensifies, but these positive personal developments end up making her less interesting as a protagonist than formerly. 9-city author tour.