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 injury results from a miscalculation that she makes in approaching a man with a very black aura; Second, her assignment to Scotland Yard puts her back in the proximity of Detective Inspector Richard Stratton and in the orbit of his soon-to-be boss, Chief Detective Inspector Robbie MacFarlane. Stratton made no secret, in the first few books, of his attraction to Maisie Dobbs, and though he's been gruff and difficult a few times, he's one of the better characters in the book -- made nice enough that the reader wants to see him win Maisie's heart, even if Maisie doesn't. In this book, we get a nice slip into familiarity with both men from our increasingly lonely and isolated heroine.

Oh, right, there's also this mystery. Maisie and the Yarders are investigating threats sent from someone who wants to see full pensions restored to everyone who left the war. This leads to a lot of lectures from professionals about the sorry state of mental health care during and post-World War I. Thousands of shell-shocked men have been released from hospitals with no or little pension money, deemed little better than deserters for their problems. To attack the issue from another angle, Billy Beale's wife, Doreen, is also committed during this book after a suicidal incident. Her treatment at the first institution she's sent to is barbaric and deeply troubling. For a bit more synchronicity in the story, Maisie's best friend Priscilla is also beset by depression. When it rains, it pours.

The hammer blows of Winspear's indignation over the terrible treatments, therapies, and stigmas of the 1930s land heavily throughout the story, though the crimes planned and committed by the mentally-ill villain are so heinous that even those anvil-like reminders of his plight can't render him sympathetic. This is not a light-hearted mystery, nor is it one that someone whose stomach is turned by the thought of animal cruelty should read. Chlorine gas, mustard gas, and the like show up to extremely ill effect.

At the end of the book, I wanted desperately to see what Maisie might accomplish were she to join the Scotland Yard team (not that the offer was made). The last book had made me wonder if she wasn't, perhaps, a better character away from the familiar faces of London; this book has made me think she'd be very effective and entertaining if she were thrown again and again into the social mix of the Scotland Yard detectives.

Time will tell, I suppose.