Winspear, Jacqueline: Among the Mad

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On Christmas Eve, 1931, Maisie Dobbs--psychologist and investigator--witnesses a disabled WWI vet blow himself up on the sidewalk. Alas, it's just the first act of violence that will mar Maisie's holiday season. There's a madman on the loose in London looking to wreak havoc because he and other veterans have been ill provided for by his country--so he explains in rambling journal entries that punctuate this novel. Maisie is called in to Scotland Yard to help with the investigation. There she catches the eye of Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane. And sure, in a weak moment she feeds him soup, but that's as far as she'll go: Maisie is married to her memories and her depressive world outlook. She will brook no man in her life.

Maisie, I'm afraid, is beginning to irritate me. The world she inhabits is simply too bleak--people are going crazy left and right or they're standing in bread lines; even the wealthy are drinking away their troubles. And Maisie bears the weight of all this to an annoying degree. Moreover, she's not as brilliant as everyone seems to think, though Lord knows she measures her words more carefully than most. She'll point out something obvious like that there might be other disaffected veterans whose grievances will lead them to violence and the policemen around her act like she's wisdom personified. All this combined with the fact that the book felt interminable and I'm afraid Winspear's sixth Maisie Dobbs novel is going to be my last.

Comments

[Kaye]

1.

Crazy town! If I did saw a man blow himself up on a holiday, that will definitely scare me to life!