An incomplete revenge, by Jacqueline Winspear

A fifth outing for “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs.  It is fall 1931, and England is feeling the effects of the deepening world-wide economic depression.  Business has been a little slow, so Maisie is grateful to receive a commission from her friend, James Compton, who is interested in buying a large property, including a successful brickworks, in Kent.  But before finalizing the purchase, he asks her to investigate the rash of petty, and not-so-petty, crimes that have occurred in the near-by village of Heronsdene, including several suspicious fires.  Oddly, the villagers seem to shrug off these events, not even deigning to call the fire department in the closest town to help put the fires out.  Additionally, the village had been damaged by a Zeppelin raid during World War I, resulting in the deaths of three villagers, but no one seems inclined to talk about that either.  In fact, the whole village’s affect is just “off.”  During the time Maisie is investigating, the annual hop harvest is occurring.  This draws both hop-harvesters from an area of London and itinerant “travelers,” gypsies who come each year to earn money by harvesting., so the village is full of strangers as well as locals, which will complicate her inquiries.  I found this to be one of the best of the series, and the details of gypsy life and hop-harvesting fascinating.  Winspear has not only developed an interesting main character, but her backstory of the time in which each book is set has taught me something in each novel.  I plan to continue to follow Maisie’s adventures.  303 pp.