Book Review of The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs enjoys her new family as Vera Lynn croons “The White Cliffs of Dover.”  How fitting is that! What can one say when a treasured fictional friend you have followed from a servant’s abode through two world wars is retired.  Jacqueline Winspear’s 18^th Mazie Dobbs adventure, The Comfort of Ghosts is a satisfying close, but leaves just a smidgen of an opening for the author to change her mind if she wishes to continue the story beyond the end of WWII.

Rationing is still a heavy burden on life in England when the book opens. The troops are coming home, but many, including Billy’s son Will, have been psychologically damaged by their experiences.  Then comes the discovery of an undercover wartime plan to train groups of citizens, some as young as 12 or 13, to become a new “Resistance” in the country should the Nazis invade. Maisie finds four children who are a part of this plan “squatting” terror-filled in a London flat after witnessing a murder on a country estate where the owner has been hosting parties catering to German sympathizers.

To save the children, Masie promises to solve the murder. The unraveling is, as usual, full of twists and turns. Masie’s longtime friend Priscilla comes back into the picture as does the final section that circles all the way back to the tragic death of her husband James.    

Winspear’s simple straight-forward prose is masterfully combined with her skillful insertions of all the background material needed to make this story coherent for a first-time reader. However, the narrative is much richer and enjoyable if you have followed Maise right from the start and assimilated the details of her beginnings in the servant quarters, her series of happy as well as tragic love affairs, and her work as an investigator and psychological analyst. As one of that rank of readers, I will simply close with a line from the epilogue. It says it all about Masie’s hold on us and our attachment to Ms. Winspear’s plot-making, historical acumen, and emotional wisdom. 

             “Maisie reflected on the passage of time and how one path had led to the next,

often by chance and sometimes by intention, though invariably with a few sharp,

            uncomfortable turns.”