The Comfort of Ghosts
Book 18
Coming June 4th
A milestone in historical mystery fiction as Maisie Dobbs takes her final bow!
Psychologist and Investigator, Maisie Dobbs unravels a profound mystery from her past in a war-torn nation grappling with its future.
London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Soon after a demobilized British soldier, ill and reeling from his experiences overseas takes shelter with the group, Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners.
Maisie is deeply puzzled by the children’s reticence. Their stories are evasive and, more mysteriously, they appear to possess hand-to-hand combat skills one might expect of trained adults in wartime. Her quest to bring comfort and the promise of a future to the youngsters and to the ailing soldier, reveals a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental aircraft. As Maisie picks apart the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.
The award-winning Maisie Dobbs’ series has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, readers who are drawn to a woman who is of her time, yet familiar in ours—and who inspires with her resilience and capacity for endurance at the worst of times. This final assignment of her own choosing not only opens a new future for Maisie Dobbs and her family, but serves as a fascinating portrayal of the challenges facing the people of Britain at the close of the Second World War.
Full Praise
“Winspear presents the eighteenth and final book in her internationally bestselling Maisie Dobbs series that began in 2003. In the very first novel, neatly titled Maisie Dobbs, Maisie remarks, ‘we only like our heroes out in the street when they are looking their best . . . not when they’re showing us the wounds they suffered on our behalf.’ She was referencing WWI survivors. Her story spans the years 1910–45, and now, at its conclusion, Maisie finds herself dealing with many who have been terribly wounded, physically and mentally, by WWII. Four adolescent orphans damaged by their experiences are squatting in a vacant mansion in London, and when Maisie investigates, she discovers they are caring for a recently demobbed soldier on death’s doorstep. She also uncovers a decades-old secret about her deceased husband that puts her beliefs in him and his family to the test. Winspear delivers a most elegant and satisfying resolution. In her opening letter to the reader, she writes, ‘I’ve endeavored to create a body of work that is in equal measure a family saga and mystery series.’ She succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations. It’s a privilege to experience life with Winspear’s determined and maximally resilient woman protagonist.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“A fitting finale to a marvelously entertaining series full of finely drawn characters often scarred by the horrors of war.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fitting, heartwarming conclusion to a beloved series.”
—Publishers Weekly
The Maisie Dobbs Series
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4
5
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7
8
9
10
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14
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18