A DANGEROUS PLACE ~ MAISIE DOBBS #11 ~ by Jacqueline Winspear

I’ve enjoyed getting to know Maisie Dobbs over the past eleven books. I still remember how blown away I was by the first book in the series, in which we met a young maid of thirteen who read books in the dead of night so that she could improve her education!

Clearly Maisie is remarkable, and as the series has gone along, I’ve enjoyed seeing her friendships with Billy Beale, Priscilla Partridge and Maurice Blanche play out. Recently, author Jacqueline Winspear out-did herself with two Maisie Dobbs novels ~ ELEGY FOR EDDIE and LEAVING EVERYTHING MOST LOVED ~ by writing about two people who were different. In Eddie’s case, he was a so-called simple man, who, in fact had great gifts. In the case of Usha Pramal, a young woman from the Indian subcontinent trying to make a life for herself in the UK, it was the issues of race and gender. In both books, Jacqueline Winspear’s pen overflowed with empathy for these two people who both met untimely deaths.

But in the most recent Maisie Dobss novel I’ve read, A DANGEROUS PLACE, I began to take a dislike to Maisie for the first time ever. Of course, what happened to Maisie at the beginning of the volume was devastating, and it is a wonder that she is able to function at all after losing both a beloved husband and her unborn child. But there was something about the way she kept pestering the sister of the dead man, whose murder is the main top of this book. 

Sebastian Babayoff is a talented photographer whom Maisie discovers sprawled on a path, lifeless. Most people would take the next ship home, leaving Gibraltar for England as soon as possible. But (of course) Maisie is not like that. She suspects that things are not what they seem, and begins an informal investigation into Sebastian’s death. Of course, she discovers that Sebastian left two sisters ~ Miriam, a seamstress (and a talented photographer in her own right) and her sick sister Channa. Miriam, bereft, is now solely responsible for her sister, and is struggling to make ends meet (which is why she takes in mending.)

But I must say I found the way in which Maisie treats Miriam really put me off. She pesters her with all sorts of questions about Sebastian, including what it felt like to view his dead body in the morgue. I understand that Maisie is suffering, but it just seemed so selfish of her to keep rubbing Miriam’s face in the open wound of her grief for her brother.

I am planning to pick up the next book in the series, JOURNEY TO MUNICH, and I am hoping that Maisie is a lot more sensitive in her questioning of bereaved people in the next volume.

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