Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
100th out of 419 books
—
401 voters
Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6)
by
Jacqueline Winspear (Goodreads Author)
In the thrilling new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of An Incomplete Revenge, Maisie Dobbs must catch a madman before he commits murder on an unimaginable scale
It’s Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening...more
It’s Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening...more
Hardcover, 303 pages
Published
February 17th 2009
by Henry Holt and Co.
(first published 2009)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
I don't know if the Maisie Dobbs books fall in the 'chicklit' category or not, but I have a secret weakness for them. I am reading this one on my fancy new Kindle, which is skinnier than I would ever have thought possible. Life is good.
The burning question, of course, remains the same. Will this be the book where Maisie finally gets laid? Will she even get a chaste peck on the cheek? Lord knows, it's time - it's been 14 years since the end of the Great War, and the shell-shocked fiance who was c...more
The burning question, of course, remains the same. Will this be the book where Maisie finally gets laid? Will she even get a chaste peck on the cheek? Lord knows, it's time - it's been 14 years since the end of the Great War, and the shell-shocked fiance who was c...more
Sep 22, 2011
Hannah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2011-reads,
mysteries
Among the Mad is quite possibly the closest I'm ever going to get in liking the character of Maisie Dobbs. While I have enjoyed the series as a whole, I haven't always enjoyed Maisie, and it wasn't until her last adventure ( An Incomplete Revenge ) that Maisie and her cold fish-ery ways didn't make me want to wack her upside the head with a cloche hat. In fact, this installment (the sixth in the series) finds Maisie relatively normal. She's not conjuring up some Jedi power deep within her diaphr...more
6 likes · like · see review
Last night (2/20/09) I met Teri Garzon and we went to Vroman's to hear Jacqueline Winspear speak about this book, the latest in her Maisie Dobbs series. She talked about different experiences or memories from her life that sparked the ideas for this new book. As a teenager, she did voluteer work at a mental hospital, which sparked an idea for this book. She also spoke about her grandfather and his "shell shock" from World War I. Finally she related a brief personal experience when she was workin...more
3 likes · like · see review
Winspear, Jacqueline. AMONG THE MAD. (2009). ****.
This author has been consistently putting out excellent installments in her Maisie Dobbs series, and this is another one. This time, Maisie has to deal with an unknown man who has threatened to do the City of London (or people in it) some sort of grievious harm unless his demands are met. His demands are that the veterans of the Great War be given the pensions that they were promised – especially those who were not recognized as being “wounded” b...more
This author has been consistently putting out excellent installments in her Maisie Dobbs series, and this is another one. This time, Maisie has to deal with an unknown man who has threatened to do the City of London (or people in it) some sort of grievious harm unless his demands are met. His demands are that the veterans of the Great War be given the pensions that they were promised – especially those who were not recognized as being “wounded” b...more
Mar 30, 2013
P.d.r. Lindsay
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-mysteries
Jacqueline Winspear has become very popular with her Maisie Dobbs Mysteries. ‘Among the Mad’ is a serious look at what happened to all those men who were soldiers in the Great War (WWI) and returned home physically and/or mentally crippled. Maisie is walking through London when one badly damaged man uses a Mill’s bomb (a grenade) to blow himself up. The following day the Home Secretary receives a letter mentioning this and threatening more destruction, but of masses of innocent people. Maisie is...more
I love this series, I can't seem to get enough. And I finally got my hands on the latest, Among the Mad, just in time - the next book in the series will be out next month. And once again I was swept into the 1930's along with Maisie Dobbs. And like the other books I couldn't put it down until I was done.
I found this book a little darker compared to the previous titles. But nevertheless it still was a true Maise Dobbs, full of mystery, intrigue and also a race to stop an emotionally disturbed per...more
I found this book a little darker compared to the previous titles. But nevertheless it still was a true Maise Dobbs, full of mystery, intrigue and also a race to stop an emotionally disturbed per...more
I'm a little conflicted. I enjoyed the first few Maisie Dobbs books but after six they're starting to pall a bit. The tension, storyline and unique writing style are all great. But many of the personal issues are still essentially unresolved, it feels like her narrative is going nowhere.
The biggest complaint I have is that I never really feel very positive after the books. I get that they're about a depressing era but it feels like they are stuck in a rut of sameness. Every book seems to have t...more
The biggest complaint I have is that I never really feel very positive after the books. I get that they're about a depressing era but it feels like they are stuck in a rut of sameness. Every book seems to have t...more
I spent most of the book skimming to find out what would happen to Billy Beale's wife Doreen. Interesting new characters coming into Maisie's life and I'm wondering if we will see a love interest for her in the future?
"It’s Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Mais...more
"It’s Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Mais...more
There something comforting about reading a series of books with the same characters. And it's even better when it's British period drama, it involves mystery, and there's a strong female lead. Among the Mad is Jacqueline Winspear's sixth Masie Dobbs novel, and it was just as good as the first five.
The series takes place just after the end of WWI, when a country, it's soldiers, and it's civilians are reeling and recovering from the physical, emotional, and mental damages of war. Maisie is a train...more
The series takes place just after the end of WWI, when a country, it's soldiers, and it's civilians are reeling and recovering from the physical, emotional, and mental damages of war. Maisie is a train...more
While this story deals with those who have gone mad either during the Great War or as a consequece of living with the scars of the war, we find Maisie is actually beginning to embrace life, after years of being a "cardboard cut-out" of her former self and having experienced an emotional breakdown after returning to France to "confront her dragons." She is moving toward health and relationships are filling out and becoming something with depth; something to be enjoyed again.
In this story Scotlan...more
In this story Scotlan...more
I'm not much of a mystery reader - I'll be the first to admit that, after reading mysteries for years, they become a bit predictable for me.
The exception to that, however, is a well-researched historical mystery, and Jacqueline Winspear offers this decadent, perfect combination of mystery, fantastic heroine, and historical accuracy that is hard to resist.
I've only read a few of the Maisie Dobbs stories (and oddly out of order, so don't let not having #1 stop you from reading them!) and they are...more
The exception to that, however, is a well-researched historical mystery, and Jacqueline Winspear offers this decadent, perfect combination of mystery, fantastic heroine, and historical accuracy that is hard to resist.
I've only read a few of the Maisie Dobbs stories (and oddly out of order, so don't let not having #1 stop you from reading them!) and they are...more
In this installment we find Maisie racing against time to stop a terrorist, think the Unabomber type before he kills again. Cute little animals and people are not safe while this psychopath is on the loose. Yes, the descriptions of those poor little doggies unfortunate ends disturbed me even more than the junior prime minister's death. I must say though that the description of his untimely demise was particularly grisly for a Maisie Dobbs novel. At the same time this is happening, poor Billy Bea...more
Winspear's Maisie Dobbs novels are a wonderful exploration of post WW1 Britain. This is perhaps the fifth or sixth book in the series that I've read and it has the darkest mood of the bunch.
The series centers around the post war trauma and emotional damage suffered by the soldiers and their families. AMONG THE MAD goes deeper than that to explore government involvement in human experimentation with toxic gasses and chemicals. This series may be looked at as light reading, but the subject is seri...more
The series centers around the post war trauma and emotional damage suffered by the soldiers and their families. AMONG THE MAD goes deeper than that to explore government involvement in human experimentation with toxic gasses and chemicals. This series may be looked at as light reading, but the subject is seri...more
It's strange, but somehow also entertaining, to read a "ripped from today's headlines" story set in 1931. In this book, the absolutely undefeatable Maisie Dobbs is recruited by Scotland Yard's Special Branch to assist in investigating a terror plot, after her name is included in a threatening letter sent to the Yard. Right away, two things promise this book could be much more interesting than the last few: First, Maisie is actually injured in a suicide bombing not far from her flat, and her inju...more
Apr 29, 2011
Michele bookloverforever
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction
Maisie is on the way home when a disabled veteran of WWI explodes a homemade bomb, killing himself and hurting the people nearby. Next day, the prime minister receives a letter threatening more violence in the streets unless more is done for the veterans hurt in WWI and jobs for the out of work veterans. MI5 gets involved as well as the police special branch. Maisie finds herself drafted to find the terrorist. Along the way she finds the british government's secret poison gas facility where unsu...more
Mar 23, 2011
Jennifer
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
audio-books,
what-i-listened-to-in-2011
I've generally enjoyed listening to the Maisie Dobbs stories while recognizing certain weaknesses (Maisie et al look at their watches and clocks and bite their lips with sometimes wearying regularity), but Among the Mad was the weakest of the first six stories. Winspear uses her standard plotting framework of the main story related to the war (the search for the mad chemical bomber), the side story related to the war (Mulberry Point and how chemical weapons and antidotes were developed there, an...more
Whenever I read Winspear, I feel like hiding the book behind a fake cover. I always think that her books should be labelled as 'young adult' fiction. However, she inevitably gets me hooked, and I reassure myself by reading the reviews and knowing that reputable sources like her too. So that's a confession of book snobbery, I suppose. Winspear writes with an almost stilted primness and she truly seems to capture another era, one in which a woman carefully matches her hat and gloves before going o...more
I found this book quite by chance at the library. What luck! Little did I know it was the 6th book in a series. I liked it so much I decided to read the series backward - just finished, and want to go forward and read through to #6 again!
These books are not ordinary! Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist/private investigater in post-WWI London. She came from a poor family but was given a chance to better herself by an upper-class woman with a good heart. Maisie worked as a tweeny maid in the woman's ho...more
These books are not ordinary! Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist/private investigater in post-WWI London. She came from a poor family but was given a chance to better herself by an upper-class woman with a good heart. Maisie worked as a tweeny maid in the woman's ho...more
I liked the first two books in this series the best. This one was similar to the last few - WWI history, Maisie Dobbs calm & cool sleuthing ability, with her personal life not taking as much progress as I expected. It's an okay book. Clean, though.
And I am always annoyed when I feel that books digress with personal development in a following novel, which this one seemed to w/ Doreen, Billy's wife. She was getting over Lizzie's death at the end of the last novel, so I was rather surprised wh...more
And I am always annoyed when I feel that books digress with personal development in a following novel, which this one seemed to w/ Doreen, Billy's wife. She was getting over Lizzie's death at the end of the last novel, so I was rather surprised wh...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
May 01, 2009
Marsha
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who enjoy the Mary Russell detective series
The sixth in the Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, series picks up on Christmas Eve 1931. Winspear has done a nice job of developing her characters throughout the series, allowing them to grow and change according to circumstances. Although a few characters strain credulity, that can be forgiven because they serve the greater purpose of the plots. Maisie, our intrepid but no-longer-young girl detective has risen from poverty and domestic service, past service as a nurse in France, to...more
Tuppence Beresford Nee Cowley by Agatha Christie, Phryne Fisher by Kerry Underwood, Nancy Drew by Caroline Keene, what do these characters have in common? They are all feisty, sleuths who manage to catch the bad guy and have a good time doing it. While not quite as carefree as the other detectives, my latest favorite character is Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. Maisie is an ex-nurse who is now working as a detective. You might think that a book based on the time directly after WWI might be...more
This is the sixth in the Maisie Dobbs series and one of the darkest books in the series. The book opens on Christmas Eve 1931 in London in which the population is still recovering from World War I and is in the depths of the Great Depression. While this book stands alone, I think that these books should be read in order because of the character development that takes place over the series. I'm very interested in the interwar period of the 20th century and the Maisie Dobbs series can be read alon...more
I have read all of these books. I just completed the latest in her series. It is a bit more dark than the others because of the seriousness of the subject but still it is worth the read. The series starts with Maisie Dobbs. She is a physcologist/P.I. who begins her career just after WWWI. Women were branching out into all sorts of new fields but not welcomed into many. Police work was not a welcoming field. It still isn't. Maisie is a young woman who has aged because of the rages of war and its...more
Maisie Dobbs, psychological detective, witnesses a crippled WWI veteran blow himself up in London at Christmastime. Next thing she knows, Scotland Yard has received a terrorist threat in which her name comes up. Maisie joins forces with Scotland Yard--and occasionally, unwillingly, with Special Branch--to try to find the terrorist before he makes good on his threats, which seem to involve the kind of gases used in the war.
As usual with the Maisie Dobbs stories, there's a layer of underlying sadn...more
As usual with the Maisie Dobbs stories, there's a layer of underlying sadn...more
This is the sixth book that I've read in this series and I am enjoying it very much.I thought that the first four were excellent but was a bit disappointed with the fifth one, "An Incomplete Revenge".
I am very happy that Winspear is back on track with "Among the Mad". Once again, the author explores the theme of the long-term physical and psychological effects of World War I (and, by extension of course, any war)on the soldiers who fought in these battles and on their families and friends. This...more
I am very happy that Winspear is back on track with "Among the Mad". Once again, the author explores the theme of the long-term physical and psychological effects of World War I (and, by extension of course, any war)on the soldiers who fought in these battles and on their families and friends. This...more
Christmas Eve, 1931. Maisie Dobbs and her assistant, Billy Beale, are on their way to meet with a client when they witness a man commit suicide in the middle of a busy London street. Shortly thereafter, Maisie is called by Scotland Yard to assist in identifying the writer of a mysterious letter, who has promised to unleash horrors on London if his demands are not met - and has mentioned Maisie in the letter. Maisie begins chasing down leads in her characteristic intuitive style - clashing at tim...more
The friend who introduced me to this series keeps mentioning how Jacqueline Winspear's writing keeps getting better with each book. This volume is further evidence of that claim. In this adventure, Maisie Dobbs is pulled away from her private clientele, as Scotland Yard employs her to deal with a terrorist's threat to government officials and the general public. As always in these books the tragic results of war are at the base of this threat. Even Maisie's best friend finds her ability to funct...more
The story was interesting enough in this Maisie mystery and was told at a leisurely pace. That was fine and I enjoyed hearing about the day to day events in Maisie's life.
However, possible spoilers ahead... I have absolutely NO sympathy for her good friend Priscilla. How self-centered and selfish can you get? I can't see the point in adding her to the story except to whine about her terribly boring life. Please!
And I am getting a little fed up with 'practically perfect in every way' Maisie 'Ma...more
However, possible spoilers ahead... I have absolutely NO sympathy for her good friend Priscilla. How self-centered and selfish can you get? I can't see the point in adding her to the story except to whine about her terribly boring life. Please!
And I am getting a little fed up with 'practically perfect in every way' Maisie 'Ma...more
1 like · like · see review
After a bit of despair over the book previous to Among the Mad in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series, I'm happy to report that this novel may well be the best in the series thus far. Maisie seems to have softened in this book and the sympathy it creates for her character makes all the difference in the world.
Maisie is still the consummate detective in this story that takes place in England, 1931-32. When London itself is threatened by a mad-man, Maisie is brought in by Scotland Yard (fabulous addit...more
Maisie is still the consummate detective in this story that takes place in England, 1931-32. When London itself is threatened by a mad-man, Maisie is brought in by Scotland Yard (fabulous addit...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
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
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“And there's a thin line between genius and insanity, isn't there?”
—
5 people liked it
“Suffice it to say that we only answer questions when the person asking has a lot of silver on the epaulettes, or around the peak of his cap.”
—
2 people liked it
More quotes…
Jul 15, 2010 12:39pm
Jul 17, 2010 08:54am