A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It is 1932 and Maisie Dobbs is recruited by Scotland Yard's Special Branch to go undercover as a junior lecturer at a Cambridge college to observe activities “not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government.” And sure enough, the college President is found dead in his office, another professor is secretly skulking off to London, and whisps of communism and nazi gatherings are in the air.



Winspear skillfully evokes England at the fulcrum between the wars: Hitler's seductive nationalism, the desperate desire for peace among nations, the hope for a better tomorrow. Observant, beguiling, astute and humorous by turns, Maisie is a delightful and multi-layered character---the perfect companion to lead the reader through these events.



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