This was a really interesting mystery and crime novel, again set in aftermath of World War One. There is a lot of detail here, which I really enjoyed. This mystery exposes very dubious recruiting practices, and drug habits picked up in the army to deal with injuries. There are profound social and family results from the recruiting issues. Maisie is asked to look into why the daughter of a wealthy grocery store keeper (originally a butcher) has run away, and she ends up solving several rather odd murders too.

Maisie was a more rounded person in this book, and I really like the way she uses both physical evidence and psychological insight to solve crime.

Absolutely fascinating, and I found myself wanting to check things up, and read more. I knew about the white feather, but had no idea things had been so alarmingly "organised" and sanctioned (as I found out when I started reading elsewhere).

On an artwork point, I really like the editions I have with their 1920s/1930s vintage rail and sea travel poster look. This really helps with the atmosphere, and getting in the mood to read fiction set in this time period. I particularly like having only a partial image of Maisie Dobbs herself - it leaves me free to imagine her face and mannerisms. ( )

Maisie is hired to find the run away daughter of a wealthy grocery store businessman. During her investigate three childhood friends of the missing woman are murdered. While trying to find the missing woman, Maisie's father has a heart attack and is hospitalized and her assistant falls back into an old drug habit from his war injury. ( )

In the second book in the Maisie Dobbs series, a father asks Maisie to find his runaway adult daughter without alerting the police or press. He is a businessman, and it could damage his prospects if word were to get out. His daughter may be in danger...or may be a killer. It's up to Maisie and her assistant, Billy Beale to get to the bottom of this.

The audiobook I listened to was read by Kim Hicks, who did an excellent job with many characters, even making the men sound individual, and also had to deal with multiple accents (I'm no expert on how well she did there). Though a true cozy with much death off-screen (which I prefer), the psychological thrill of wondering whether Charlotte is in danger or is perpetuating these murders kept me interested as a listener and made this a rather difficult book to listen to before going to bed. ( )

Although I love crime fiction what really fascinates me about these books is the research and the reminder that WWI destroyed a generation of lives. Maisie is also a compelling character. ( )

Thoroughly researched but contains too much detail, especially just naming things we no longer know by name, so there is no association of appearance or function. Does not have the immediacy of Sayers' novels actually written in the same period (post WWI England). The mystery was fairly done, but the protagonist seemed a bit dense and even stupid at times; her use of 'spiritual senses' to obtain and process clues was appropriate for the times (cf. Doyle's dabbling in spiritualism), but functioned sometimes as a 'deus ex machina'. ( )