Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear

The first in a series of mystery novels featuring Maisie Dobbs.   As the book opens, Maisie is setting up her first office as “M. Dobbs.  Trade and Personal Investigations.”  The year is 1929 but soon flashes back to 1910.  As Maisie begins her solo career as an investigator, we learn her backstory as the daughter of a poor working class man who is overcome, as is 13 year-old Maisie, by the death of his wife.  But Maisie's fortunes improve when she is taken in as a maid by Lady Rowan.  Her love of reading – sneaking down at night to haunt the library – and her unusual ability for self-education attract the attention of Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, a private investigator, who becomes her mentor.  Her formal education, when she earns a place at Girton College in Cambridge, is interrupted by the outbreak of The Great War and she serves as a nurse behind the front lines.  These varied life experiences will form her acute psychological sensitivities which will serve her well in her new job.  As she investigates a possible case of infidelity, it leads her The Retreat, a home for battle-disfigured and mentally affected soldiers.  But behind its compassionate mission, there is something very odd about it.  Interesting blend of the suffragette era, the aftermath of WWI with its devastating effects on the youth of Britain, and a mystery novel.  294 pp.