A Lesson in Secrets audiobook

Jacqueline Winspear fans won’t need any prodding to read her latest Maisie Dobbs mystery, A Lesson in Secrets. The rest of you should be ashamed of yourselves. This is her eighth book in the series, and by now you should have been gobbling up these first-rate novels set in the years following World War I. Maisie’s character makes for uncommonly good reading. Winspear avoids all the simplistic, predictable versions of independent female sleuth that have proliferated over the years. She has described how, in her childhood, she observed her grandfather who was gassed and wounded with shrapnel in the Great War and her grandmother who was injured in a munitions factory explosion. She had questions that got only partial answers—this was not the generation to talk about their war experiences. She noticed the remarkable women in her neighborhood who had built lives without husbands or children because so many of the men in their generation had been killed. Maisie Dobbs appears to have had a long, sensitive birthing in Winspear’s fertile imagination, although she describes first “seeing” Maisie almost fully understood in a flash while driving one day, which she calls her moment of writer’s grace. All her characters, not only Miss Dobbs herself, will reach into you in ways that go well beyond the usual mystery novel.In A Lesson in Secrets, Maisie takes a new direction professionally, working undercover for the Secret Service. As her mentor Maurice had written to her, “I have observed your work in recent years, and it does not claim the full measure of your skill or intellect.” Never comfortable without a challenge, Maisie chooses the “new path” Maurice had hinted at. Her love life also takes some mysterious turns, which is not surprising for someone who is as suspicious of the possibility of “happily ever after” as Maisie is.While her assignment from SIS involves monitoring activities in a Cambridge college “not in the interests of the Crown” rather than hunting down murderers, she still manages to find a dead body. As she discovers, there are a number of people who might have been willing to kill this man with a complicated, hidden past. A Lesson in Secrets, set in 1932, depicts the conflicting political currents of the years leading up to World War II. Maisie and the Secret Service do not see eye to eye about who the true threats to the Crown will prove to be. Not only is this assignment part of a fascinating spider web reaching across Europe, but clearly we have more to come. I can’t wait, but of course, now that I’ve read A Lesson in Secrets, I will wait patiently for one more year. Thank goodness Jacqueline Winspear writes a book a year!

A lot has changed in Maisie’s life and the reader knows it will after reading the end of the previous book in the series. I enjoyed Maisie’s new role and the various other changes as they help keep the series feeling fresh. I also loved so much of what was going on with other main characters and liked meeting the many new, most temporary I think, characters in this book. I loved this book and the last book so much. The next book doesn’t look as good to me but I hope that I’m wrong about that and I’ll enjoy it just as much as the others or at least enjoy it. WWI is still one of the topics but WWII is definitely on the horizon. I believe I’ll prefer that and also hope to read more storylines not directly associated with any war. As usual I enjoy the English settings of London and County Kent and there was also a bit of Cambridge and other areas in this story. I love the settings and the history and the mystery but mostly I love the characters.

This may be my favorite Maisie Dobbs. It has an interesting mystery as always, but it's more Maisie as woman coming in to her full stride of life that grabbed me. She now has an established inquiry agency with Billy Beale as her assistant. She is so well-regarded that Scotland Yard and the Secret Service have called her in for some under cover work. She is teaching philosophy at a new college in Cambridge, watching for signs of anti-government leanings of students or staff. On her second day there the college's founder is found dead in his office. Although she is not there to solve a murder, Maisie cannot stop herself from investigating. She's running back and forth to London in her MG, meeting clandestinely with Scotland Yard investigators and keeping up with her teaching duties. As always, Maisie meets a variety of interesting people in her investigation, some of whom with she will stay in touch. Set in 1932, I found the foreshadowing of WWII apropo to Maisie's remit a perfect secondary storyline, as the series deals with the effects of the Great War on Maisie and those she loves as well as Europe as a whole. I definitely recommend this series. Start with the first book, Maisie Dobbs to get the full experience.

This is the 8th in the Maisie Dobbs series and she has reached late 1932. With economic times still hard in England and Europe as a whole, Hitler and the Nazi party on the rise in Germany and the Secret Service recruiting her to look for suspicious behavior at a peace college, Maisie has more than enough to keep herself busy before the murder of the college principal.In this installment, there are developments in every part of her life. Her private inquiry business continues to thrive, she is now a woman of means who can help her employee Billy if she can find a way that he can accept. She is in love but scared to lose love again. I really enjoyed this episode in Maisie's life. Yes it touched on many bases, but I found it did so well and true to the original story.

Aww I just love THAT Maisie Dobbs!!! Typical with her stories there are several going on and all kept me reading or in this case listening as it was an audiobook. This story is once again narrated by actress Orlagh Cassidy, one of my favorite audio performers.This is #8 in the series. I have read several in this series and have read out of order. Yes! There are recurring characters but have to admit it not only is fun to read how the relationships are continued. The earlier read tell us how they began. I am happy I still have many more stories to look forward to reading.In this story, Maisie is sent by the British Service to be a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge. No soon has she arrived with the pacifist college founder is murdered. There are some twists and our Maisie comes through once again with her excellent investigative skills.Additionally there is another story going when a young 24 year old finds herself a widow and she believe her husband’s death wasn’t more than an accident.Thank you Jacqueline Winsper for a such GREAT series

December 1932. Adolf Hitler is agitating to become Chancellor of Germany as his following grows. Many Britons, too, especially the aristocracy, are finding a lot to like in Herr Hitler and his Nazi Party. In increasing numbers, they are campaigning to resist any effort by the United Kingdom to go to war with Nazi Germany—a war that many wiser heads are already predicting. The Nazis and the Fascists are joined by many pacifists. But Maisie Dobbs is not among them. She abhors the anti-Semitism of the Nazis as well as the home-grown Fascists and regards pacifism as naive. But more mundane concerns preoccupy her.Maisie’s business as a “private inquiry agent” is growing, making for more work than she and her assistant, Billy Beale, can comfortably handle. Her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche, has willed most of his considerable estate to her. She’s now a wealthy woman. But Maisie is not happy. Her aging father stubbornly refuses to move into the large house she has inherited from Maurice. James Compton, the man who is “courting” her, has postponed his return from Canada. And now she discovers that she is being followed wherever she goes.After eluding the three-person team who is tailing her, Maisie surprises (and embarrasses) them. Learning that they’re police officers from Special Branch at New Scotland Yard, she demands they take her to their boss, Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane.When Maisie arrives at MacFarlane’s office, she soon learns that she was being followed as a test of her ability to detect a tail. And a surprise visitor soon arrives in the office: Brian Huntley, a senior officer in the Secret Service. The Chief Superintendent has undertaken the exercise in collaboration with Huntley. In short order, Maisie learns that her life and work are about to take a radical turn, as Maurice had predicted shortly before his death.Huntley presses her to sign the Official Secrets Act and then describes her strange assignment. She is to apply for a position as a lecturer in philosophy at a private college in Cambridge. The College of St. Francis, dedicated to the pursuit of peace, is attracting students from all around Europe. The Secret Service will ensure that she gets the job. Her assignment is merely to keep her eyes and ears open, looking for anything suspicious that may turn up at the college.Not long after Maisie takes up her job, she finds an abundance of suspicious activity among the pacifists on the faculty. And then the founder and head of the college is murdered in his office. In A Lesson in Secrets, Jacqueline Winspear’s eighth Maisie Dobbs novel, Maisie becomes involved in the murder investigation and in uncovering a growing Nazi threat. The story is suspenseful, engaging, and full of surprises. It’s a delight for any fan of the series—and for anyone who seeks out mysteries and thrillers that avoid the violence and gore so prevalent in the genre.

Maisie Dobbs is now financially independent thanks to a bequest from Maurice Blanche... AND she is being recruited by the British Secret Service.There are two simultaneous stories here:1. Greville Liddicott, president of The College of St. Francis, has written a children's book espousing pacifism. The government has gone to great lengths to suppress this book, ostensibly because it has caused mutinies during WWI. Maisie is sent to The College to keep an eye on Liddicott.2. A young lady who had lived with Maisie, Sandra, comes to Maisie grief stricken. Sandra is now a widow. She believes that her husband's death was not accidental but that he was murdered.Maisie has her work cut out for her but, as usual, rises to the occasion. On the way to the end of the book, she solves two murders.A very good story, just not my favorite. I still give it...4 stars

I am enjoying Maisie as I read the books. There are plenty of secrets that Maisie must keep. Maisie is working with the Secret Service and is teaching at The College Of St Francis, school established to bring about PEACE. There are worries that the Nazi party is there. While Maisie is present the Dean is MURDER.Billie is working to Sandra find out why her husband died. James Compton is in Canada. All the characters continue to grow.

I love these books. Maisie is such an interesting character and I love watching her solve cases. She also lives in such an interesting time in history and in this book especially it was interesting to see some of the things going on in Britain, knowing what will be happening in less than a decade. I'm still hoping Maisie will find her happily ever after and am more convinced that she just needs to let herself be happy.

This wasn't quite as dark as a couple of the earlier ones, which I appreciated. I also appreciated that the different webs of Maisie's life didn't magically and quite unrealistically coalesce into one big solution, though I did at times struggle to keep all the people straight. I'm interested to see how things develop in the next books.

Here is another enjoyable read in the Maisie Dobbs series, with the quality of the story and the consistency in the characterizations - except...This book lost a star in my rating only because Winspear has Maisie go farther in her relationship with James Compton than I think the lady she developed, in her time period, would have gone. That was the only disappointment.