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36th out of 153 books
—
193 voters
An Incomplete Revenge (Maisie Dobbs #5)
by
Jacqueline Winspear (Goodreads Author)
Maisie Dobbs travels to Kent to investigate, among other things, a series of fires, a family of Dutch bakers who were killed during WWI in a zeppelin attack and the theft of some silver. Hop-picking has brought everyone to the area, from Londoners to Gypsies. Orlagh Cassidy, who also read Messenger of Truth, not only captures a range of London and Kentish accents, but she...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
June 5th 2008
by Hodder Murray
(first published 2008)
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Maisie leaves London and heads to Kent in the middle of hopping season to undertake some investigations into a brickworks and the surrounding village.
While I enjoy the Maisie Dobbs series (if you're completely unfamiliar, think post-WW1 solo female detective, a former nurse with painful history), there are several elements to the series that don't click with me - Maisie's psychic abilities are up there (I like fantasy, I just don't like psychics in historical fiction), as is her overly formal t...more
While I enjoy the Maisie Dobbs series (if you're completely unfamiliar, think post-WW1 solo female detective, a former nurse with painful history), there are several elements to the series that don't click with me - Maisie's psychic abilities are up there (I like fantasy, I just don't like psychics in historical fiction), as is her overly formal t...more
Aug 29, 2011
Hannah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2011-reads,
mysteries
By far my favorite Maisie Dobbs installment since the very first book.
I was beginning to wonder how much longer I could stomach Maisie with her psychic abilities, her coldness and her all around off-putting-ness. It's very rare that I will continue with a series in which the main character annoys me so very much, but in the case of this series, I'm willing to put up with her because I do like the style of Winspear's writing, the time period, the slow plotting, and the issues that the mysteries b...more
I was beginning to wonder how much longer I could stomach Maisie with her psychic abilities, her coldness and her all around off-putting-ness. It's very rare that I will continue with a series in which the main character annoys me so very much, but in the case of this series, I'm willing to put up with her because I do like the style of Winspear's writing, the time period, the slow plotting, and the issues that the mysteries b...more
5 likes
·
like
· see review
These aren't bad... after all, I keep reading them! But there are several things about them that I find annoying.
I am uncomfortable with the mixture of "sixth sense" and pretentious academic psychology that Maisie supposedly combines to solve her cases. The review at the end, when she returns to the sites she visited during the case, seems to me a contrived device that is essentially pointless. Perhaps I also prefer my mysteries less cerebral.
In this particular book, a specific annoyed me. App...more
I am uncomfortable with the mixture of "sixth sense" and pretentious academic psychology that Maisie supposedly combines to solve her cases. The review at the end, when she returns to the sites she visited during the case, seems to me a contrived device that is essentially pointless. Perhaps I also prefer my mysteries less cerebral.
In this particular book, a specific annoyed me. App...more
2 likes
·
like
· see review
This is the 5th of the Maise Dobbs books and I think it may be the best of the series since the first one. Winspear manages to weave multiple themes, but with so much grace that they never feel forced or crowded. I was particularly impressed with the material about gypsies and the subplot about the effect of war on our humanity. The narrator, Orlagh Cassidy, does a wonderful job. In an interview on one of these audiobooks, Winspear says that she was a nonfiction writer prior to doing the first M...more
My favorite Maisie Dobbs novel yet.
I have a notion that Jacqueline Winspear creates her plots the same way Maisie Dobbs solves her mysteries - by sketching out a map containing each clue onto a large canvas until she can see how all the pieces fit together. What I find wonderful about a Winspear mystery is that her canvas doesn't just include who did it, with what, where and when. I suspect it is painted in colors to reflect the season and the clothes Maisie wears, and I'd guess that the overar...more
I have a notion that Jacqueline Winspear creates her plots the same way Maisie Dobbs solves her mysteries - by sketching out a map containing each clue onto a large canvas until she can see how all the pieces fit together. What I find wonderful about a Winspear mystery is that her canvas doesn't just include who did it, with what, where and when. I suspect it is painted in colors to reflect the season and the clothes Maisie wears, and I'd guess that the overar...more
6 likes
·
like
· see review
Jan 01, 2009
Kate
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People who think Dorothy Sayers is too rough.
Shelves:
mystery
Maisie Dobbs is a reliable gal for a turn around the park. I know she won't run off into some obscure literary lane to act coy; topics of conversation/investigation are always delightful and not too grisly; and she's deep: The War, man, The Great War. Her experience as a nurse in France colors every choice she has made since, including her choice to pursue her studies under the tutelage of her mentor, French psychiatrist and detective, Maurice. He plucked her from her life "below stairs" in an E...more
In the fifth installment of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series, we find Maisie being hired by an old friend to investigate a series of fires in a small community surrounding an estate that he wants to purchase.
Maisie thinking that this job will be straight forward she is surprised to discover the animosity between the locals, the traveling workers and the gypsy people. Not only does she have to figure the mystery of the fires but also has to deal with the death of a very special person i...more
Maisie thinking that this job will be straight forward she is surprised to discover the animosity between the locals, the traveling workers and the gypsy people. Not only does she have to figure the mystery of the fires but also has to deal with the death of a very special person i...more
With the country in the grip of economic malaise, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment to investigate a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggest a darker criminal element at work. A peculiar secrecy shrouds the v...more
I usually prefer my mysteries set in the here and now, but Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series, set in post WWI England is an exception. It presents the devastation of war in vivid terms constantly reminding me why I am a pacifist, at the same time giving hope as Maisie keeps growing beyond her terrible war traumas. This is the fifth book in the series, but it gives enough background to understand Maisie so it can be read on its own. Maisie is called to investigate a series of fires in the...more
AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE by Jacqueline Winspear is a wonderful novel. It is rich in historical detail of the impact of this ‘Great War’, and all wars on individuals and communities. This story of Maisie develops as she flashbacks to her own past along with confronting the challenges of her life today. She has to confront the slow death of a dear friend and all the mixed emotions that she feels. The telling of the rich and vivid interactions and events with gypsies who have come to live for a time n...more
This is my fifth Maisie Dobbs novel and I emerged from it a bit conflicted about the series. I know I'll continue reading them, but in the case of Winspear's heroine/sleuth, less just might be more.
Prior to this book I was a rabid Maisie Dobbs fan:
. . . I loved the exposition of post WW1 London;
. . . It was interesting to read about the rapid changes in Europe's social structure in the post war era;
. . . And, I enjoyed following Maisie-- a bright young thing escaping a working class background...more
Prior to this book I was a rabid Maisie Dobbs fan:
. . . I loved the exposition of post WW1 London;
. . . It was interesting to read about the rapid changes in Europe's social structure in the post war era;
. . . And, I enjoyed following Maisie-- a bright young thing escaping a working class background...more
http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/20...
Maisie was never very close to the Comptons’ son, James, though she has always stood a long family friend to the whole crew. When she bumps into James in the city, it is with some trepidation that she takes on a “simple” land case for his company.
It looks to be a fairly straightforward gathering of information, at first, but, then again, this is Maisie, we’re talking about. No sooner has Maisie found herself in the middle of, what should be, picturesque Ke...more
I know I've said this about the other Maisie Dobbs books but this really is my favorite so far. The mystery was very complex and interesting. We got to know more about Maisie family history. Maisie was able to release some of the pain of her past and embrace her future. And Pris was back.
I always knew there was something in Maisie's past that gave her her gift and sure enough she does. Her gypsy grandmother must have passed on more than just Maisie's jet black hair. It was nice to see Maisie get...more
I always knew there was something in Maisie's past that gave her her gift and sure enough she does. Her gypsy grandmother must have passed on more than just Maisie's jet black hair. It was nice to see Maisie get...more
First Sentence: The old woman rested on the steps of her home, a caravan set apart from those of the rest of her family, her tribe.
An old friend hires investigator Maisie Dobbs to investigate matters relating to a potential land purchase. Petty thefts have been blamed on London boys there to help pick hops, but the residents also distrust the Gypsies who are there. Maisie has discovered small fires which have occurred each year but no one reported them to the fire departments or police. A family...more
An old friend hires investigator Maisie Dobbs to investigate matters relating to a potential land purchase. Petty thefts have been blamed on London boys there to help pick hops, but the residents also distrust the Gypsies who are there. Maisie has discovered small fires which have occurred each year but no one reported them to the fire departments or police. A family...more
Lovers of Maisy Dobbs will find all the elements here that make the series so endearing: characters that breathe and feel like old friends, fascinating historical detail about life in England between the great wars, and that tantalizing aura of the preternatural that is somehow never too much to be believed.
In An Incomplete Revenge, as in other books of the series, there are themes as profound and thought provoking as any in literature (one reason I categorize these books as “literature” rather...more
In An Incomplete Revenge, as in other books of the series, there are themes as profound and thought provoking as any in literature (one reason I categorize these books as “literature” rather...more
1 like
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like
· see review
This has been my favorite in the "Maisie Dobbs" series by far, but I can't see my enjoying it so much without having had the foundation lain by the previous four. Jacqueline Winspear demonstrates a bold integrity as a writer in allowing her characters room to develop and to progress. This is essential in a series whose main character is "a wounded healer." Just as Maisie goes about healing others, she herself is allowed the opportunities to heal as well, and not necessarily via the most comforta...more
In the series of murder-mystery books featuring sleuth Maisie Dobbs, her personal life progresses from one book to the next, so reading in order is a good idea. This, the fourth book, is the best so far. Winspear focuses on the between-World Wars era in England, the plight of the huge number of bereaved, many multiply-bereaved, and the inadequacy of any government response even before the era of financial collapse. Maisie is a quasi-widow: her fiance came back severely injured, unable to communi...more
With apologies, I won't be reading any more books in this series, for despite their convincing post-World-War-1 details, if this is a good example, the Maisie Dobbs mysteries are too predictable, tidy and moralistic for my taste. When I grow up, if ever I do, I probably won't be able to hold myself to Maisie's humane yet perfectionistic standards.
With her life blighted by the Great War this thirty-ish psychologist whose work habits must mirror the successful author's own finds satisfaction unrav...more
With her life blighted by the Great War this thirty-ish psychologist whose work habits must mirror the successful author's own finds satisfaction unrav...more
I found this fourth book of the Maisie Dobbs series at my local pharmacy while getting my renewal cancer meds. I love that they have a book section. I had read the first book in the series and have purchased the latest but hadn't acquired the fill-ins.
This novel was set in Kent, U.K. where my Mother grew up in boarding school. She would take the Tunbridge Wells exit as a child. So, this was an added treat to me. Mother didn't speak of those days much. She was unhappy at school. So, I knew nothi...more
This novel was set in Kent, U.K. where my Mother grew up in boarding school. She would take the Tunbridge Wells exit as a child. So, this was an added treat to me. Mother didn't speak of those days much. She was unhappy at school. So, I knew nothi...more
Winspear's a standing favorite of mine, and her latest doesn't disappoint. She captures the emotional resonance of the interwar period so perfectly, and Maisie is one of the most fully realized characters in mystery today. There's a thread of sensitivity and grace threaded through this series that makes it one to return to time and again - more than a mystery, it's an exploration into the mental challenges of grief, loss, and finding your way again in "the afterwards."
Maisie Dobbs is hired by James Compton to find out about the village of Heronsdene, where his company proposes to buy the brickworks from Alfred Sandemere, and where no one will discuss (nor report to officials) the frequent fires or acts of theft, and where tensions are high between the villagers, the families from London who stay each summer for the hop picking, and the gypsies who have come for the same purpose. I enjoy these post WWI British mysteries, and think Maisie is an interesting char...more
This is the fifth in a mystery series by Jacqueline Winspear, a Maisie Dobbs novel. I now want to go back and read the first four because I learned so much about England between the Wars. Maisie finds herself in Kent during the harvesting of the hops, amid Londoners who want to earn some extra money and the Romy people in their caravans. She is hired to find out about arson fires in the village of Heronsdene and petty thefts. Part gypsy herself, she is able to glide between the world of the Romy...more
The fifth book in the Maisie Dobbs series, this one starts without a real crime for Maisie to investigate. Britain is in the grip of the 1930’s recession, and business is difficult, but this job seems straightforward – check out a potential land purchase for the son of her mentor, who wants to be sure he will be getting value for money, with no unexpected encumbrances. The land lies near a village in Kent, where her assistant Billy will be going for the traditional hop-picking season. Tension al...more
Sep 05, 2012
Ann Mcelligott
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-novel,
mystery
This is the fifth of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mystery series. As usual the writing is excellent, and the author has created a very competent, complex and likable character in Maisie Dobbs. The stories are set in London following WWI, Maisie having served as a nurse in France during the war. Now trained by a brilliant mentor she has become a private investigator in business for herself.
As usual Winspear provides wonderful historical information and places her story in the midst of the...more
As usual Winspear provides wonderful historical information and places her story in the midst of the...more
This was a return to form for the Winspear mysteries -- a form that felt almost Agatha Christie-like. Maisie Dobbs gets a call from the son of her benefactor (Lady Rowan Compton). James Compton is coming close to taking over the family business, and he'd like Maisie to investigate the strange vandalism problems around a property they are considering purchasing. This sends her out to the hop-picking fields with her assistant and his family. There, she discovers not only is there more to the crime...more
Mar 17, 2009
Betty
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
cozy mystery series readers
Recommended to Betty by:
review book
I was very taken with this book I loved the many textures and the fullness of characters, the setting of the late 1930s interspersed with a background story from WWI. I had never read a Maisie Dobbs story before but am fast becoming a new fan! Quite aside from the many mysterious happenings, I enjoyed learning of hop-picking, and the rich fullness of gypsies and gypsy lore.
Jacqueline Winspear has a very fluid voice in telling the story, understands the nuances in people, fear, hope, revenge, for...more
Jacqueline Winspear has a very fluid voice in telling the story, understands the nuances in people, fear, hope, revenge, for...more
Maisie and her former mentor, Maurice Blanche, are still estranged after their conflict last year over Maurice's secrets. The Beales are still mourning the loss of their young daughter, Lizzie. The sputtering economy of the early thirties is putting a strain on everything, including Maisie's business. It's a relief when James Compton brings her a seemingly straightforward case that sends Maisie and the Beales to the village of Heronsdene, in Kent, to investigate some odd events around some prope...more
***1/2
This is the 5th book in Winspear’s series about Maisie Dobbs, an investigator/psychologist who practices in post WW I England. I started out thinking this was going to be my favorite of the series, but it petered out toward the end. I was most interested in Maisie’s involvement with gypsies and the revelation that she inherited gypsy blood from her grandmother, explaining Maisie’s uncanny, almost supernatural powers. Winspear divulges lots of information about the gypsy culture and customs...more
This is the 5th book in Winspear’s series about Maisie Dobbs, an investigator/psychologist who practices in post WW I England. I started out thinking this was going to be my favorite of the series, but it petered out toward the end. I was most interested in Maisie’s involvement with gypsies and the revelation that she inherited gypsy blood from her grandmother, explaining Maisie’s uncanny, almost supernatural powers. Winspear divulges lots of information about the gypsy culture and customs...more
I discovered the Maisie Dobbs series of mysteries sometime back and have enjoyed them as a casual read for their mix of mystery and history and a strong heroine.
However, in An Incomplete Revenge I think Winspear has reached new level of assurance and skill in her writing. The historical details are well integrated into the story and there is more personal character development for Maisie.
For those who are not familiar with the series, Maisie has risen from the lower orders to obtain a universi...more
However, in An Incomplete Revenge I think Winspear has reached new level of assurance and skill in her writing. The historical details are well integrated into the story and there is more personal character development for Maisie.
For those who are not familiar with the series, Maisie has risen from the lower orders to obtain a universi...more
I listened to the audio version of this novel while commuting and enjoyed it very much. If I find myself sitting in the car once I reach my destination or looking foward to driving somewhere that's usually a sign of a good book. This is the fifth in the Maisie Dobbs series and it has certainly motivated me to start at the beginning and read or listen to them all. Maisie is a real world Agatha Christie. The books are set in a heart-broken England following the first world war. So many young men w...more
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Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in the county of Kent, England. Following higher education at the University of London’s Institute of Education, Jacqueline worked in academic publishing, in higher education and in marketing communications in the UK.
She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and while working in business and as a personal / professional coach, Jacqueline embarked upon a li...more
More about Jacqueline Winspear...
She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and while working in business and as a personal / professional coach, Jacqueline embarked upon a li...more
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“The heart does not know chronos time, Maisie.”
—
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