To Die but Once

I’m a bit late in reading and reviewing Jacqueline Winspear’s new novel, “To Die but Once: A Maisie Dobbs novel”. I’d stopped reading Winspear’s series a few years ago when she appeared to lose interest in her character – Maisie Dobbs – and the novels suffered as a result. But her last book seemed to show a sense of renewal , and with this one, Winspear has fully revived her both her main character and the secondary ones.

Winspear has moved fully into WW2. Her setting is, of course, London and Kent. It’s May, 1940, and the Phoney War has suddenly ended with the German invasion through the Low Countries into France. The British Expeditionary Force has been left stranded on the beaches of northern France, waiting for the German army to push them into the sea. Several people in Maisie’s life have sons who are with the BEF and whose very lives are on the line. Will they be rescued, and who will do the rescuing. Maisie and Billy are also looking into the death of a local boy, son of the owners of their local. Was the teenager mixed up in a larger conspiracy? Jacqueline Winspear deftly juggles these stories with a couple more, never losing the plot lines, moving both the plot and Maisie Dobbs’ life forward. The book ends as it should.

I’d say if you’ve been disappointed perhaps with several of the latter Dobbs novels, to give this book a good look. I think you’ll find it worthy.

I’m late to reading Winspear’s work. I discovered Maisie Dobbs in Jan, and started with a book mid-series, read it, and was hooked. Then I got all the books I hadn’t read yet and read them all so I was ready for this one. I’m in love with this series, and my thinking on 5-stars reviews is like this: I only give them to either books that I find of great literary importance (which are also to my taste) like Toni Morrison’s work, or the work of Jeannette Winterson. But I also give 5 star reviews to books that I simply love by authors that I have an automatic “buy” for when they have a new book come out. Jaqueline Winspear is now on my mystery list (as is Phil Rickman and Barbara Hambly).

These books are a rarity in my mind–really well told mysteries that also include phenomenal writing, excellent character development, and in this case, also excellent historical detail (which I why I also love Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series). I’ve always been fascinated by this time period as well, and Winspear captures this so well. I’ve learned a lot about the first world war from reading these series, and the times in between the war as well. Very often, reading one of the Maisie Dobbs books gets me interested enough to do research on things I didn’t know much about (Dunkirk, etc) and this was no different. Characters are well-developed and I feel as if Maisie and her friends and family are old friends.

Simply put, this is one of the best series of mysteries, particular historical mysteries, that I’ve ever read. (And I was worried when I started this book that perhaps I was coming in on the end of a series, but I’m happy to report that doesn’t seem to be the case!)

In the spring of 1940, World War II had been underway in Europe for more than half a year, but the violence had yet to come home to England. Suddenly, on May 10, Hitler’s legions rumbled across the borders of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and, finally, France.The 300,000-man British Expeditionary Force had been deployed on the Continent to support the French Army. Now, it found itself steadily pushed into a tighter and tighter space along the coast around the French port of Dunkerque (Dunkirk).

In the Battle of Dunkirk, the English people finally came to confront the terror of modern war. During ten days in late May and early June, German armies savaged retreating English and French troops and Stuka dive-bombers pounded ships sent to evacuate them. When the Admiralty confessed its inability to save the troops, newly installed Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued an open call for all British seagoing vessels to join the effort. The result was “the Miracle of Dunkirk” depicted in the popular 2017 film, Dunkirk.

On the home front, children have been evacuated from London to the countryside. In the “Phony War” that preceded the Nazi attack on the Low Countries, many families had begun to bring their children back to the city. Now, with British troops on the verge of annihilation on the Continent, a German invasion appears imminent, and that is changing. All the earmarks of home defense have sprung up: blackout curtains, barrage balloons, observation posts all along the coast, gasoline rationing, and “reserved professions” vital to feeding the people and, as the saying went, “keeping the home fires burning.”

This is the background against whichJacqueline Winspear’s fourteenth Maisie Dobbs novel is set.To Die But Oncebegins just days before the Battle of Dunkirk. Maisie’s practice as a “psychologist and investigator” has slowed, freeing her up to look into the disappearance of the teenage son of the couple who run the local pub. The young man had been sent to rural Hampshire as an apprentice to a painting crew working on a contract for the Royal Air Force. Maisie’s investigation confronts her and Billy Beale, her assistant, with a notorious gangster, war profiteers, and a plan to rob the Bank of England. Winspear tells the tale with her customary deep understanding of human behavior and her respect for historical accuracy. As she reveals in the Acknowledgments, the book was inspired by her late father, a young apprentice in a painting crew during the war.

This series and indeed this particular book present the spirit, the fear, the ongoing dark shadow of WWI, the ominous threat of WWII, in terms of real people of all walks of life, not just historical events. They bring me to another place and time, consumed by how the events of the era will affect these marvelous characters. Maisie is so inscrutable sometimes, but I appreciate that all the allusions get connected.
I am only disappointed when I realize I am coming to the end of the book and have to wait another year!

This latest “Maisie Dobbs” novel may well be her best yet, and that’s saying something. Here, Maisie is hired to find out what may have happened to a young lad employed on work for the war department. He has disapeared and his worried parents want Maisie to look into it. As she does so the plot thickens, and darkens with all sorts of complications. Behind the basic plot lies the growing horror of Dunkirk. Frankly I defy the reader not to shed a tear or two around Page 270. I did several times, and I was on a train! A beautifully crafted novel. full of mystery, drama, and real emotion. I loved it and “Maisie” fans definitely won’t be disapointed. Highly recomended. Shame I will have to wait a year? for the next one.

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