June 22, 2005

Pardonable Lies
Jacqueline Winspear
Henry Holt, 2005

In her third Maisie Dobbs novel, Ms Winspear continues with a well developed heroine who is single and operating her own detective agency in a time and society that is not friendly toward females who adopt any role other than loving mother, devoted wife and household manager. In England in 1930 with everyone still licking their wounds after a bloody war to end all wars, WWI, Maisie finds she is able to catch onto a few investigative cases and make her business go. In spite of attitudes she is very smart and able with her winning personality to inspire loyalty from her small staff and even admiration from the Scotland Yard investigator with whom she associates on behalf of some of her clients.

The first "pardonable lie" we encounter in this tale was committed by Maisie herself. She had to lie about her age to get into the nurse corps and serve at an aid station / field hospital on the front lines in France. She served most of the war in France assisting in gruesome operations often involving amputations until she herself was wounded and returned to England. Like many of the soldiers of the war Maisie suffered even deeper psychological wounds that required years of therapy received from a doctor friend and mentor of hers. In fact it was through the association with this friend that she became his apprentice in the investigation field. He had been a secret service agent during the war and continued in underground investigations for the government following the war. Europe was not stable and it was greatly feared that more difficulties would come unless steps were taken to calm the waters to avoid turmoil. The doctor taught Maisie how to be thorough, how to think, how to do research, and how to finally fit the facts together to solve whatever problem was being investigated.

Maisie was contracted to do three different searches on behalf of clients at the beginning of this story. First, a young girl was found holding the knife that had been used to stab and kill her "uncle". She had been forcibly sent to the city by her mean stepfather to serve as a prostitute working for her "uncle" in order to help the family make a living in the hard life after the war. The second was to search out and determine whether a young son of an MP was really dead, find out how he died, and where his body is buried. The third was a similar search of the facts around the death of a young man who was the brother of one of Maisie's classmates from private school. Of course as you might expect these investigations became fairly complicated. In fact someone did not want Maisie to continue her investigation into one of the three of these mysteries. In the weeks following her taking on these tasks there were many attempts on Maisie's life.

She barely survived a car crash caused by someone suddenly jumping out in front of her. She was nearly pushed from a train platform into the path of an arriving train. Poisoned chocolates were sent to her but she didn't like chocolates and left them for friends at the office, one of whom nearly died from the rat poison on them. She was followed around in France and had to duck her tail fearing for her safety many times. When she returned from France her MG had been repaired of damage from the car crash so she drove it out to the country and the brakes failed as she was coming down a steep hillside on a winding road. She crashed again but was not too badly injured.

In between these crashes and murder attempts Maisie discovers one small fact after another. She traces the facts to a small village in France where the son of the PM had crashed in his De Haviland plane. The son was rescued from the plane by the brother of her friend who had been working in the village occupied by the germans and was delivering intelligence information back to England. Following the clues Maisie finds the rescued son alive under a new identity in France. His life had been really complicated before the war with poor school performance, unpopularity and homosexual activity. He was certainly a disappointment to his father the PM. His father was only following a deathbed promise to his wife to find out for sure that he had died and had no desire to associate with his son if he were alive. So, Maisie undertook another "pardonable lie" in keeping the secret of his new identity from the PM father.

The other young soldier had continued his underground spying and had died in Germany while still in heroic service to the crown. But, he had left behind a little girl, the result of his love of a woman in the French village. Maisie discovered the girl living with her grandmother. The girl's mother had been executed by the Germans as a spy. It turns out that the grandmother was also a spy and is currently still operating as a spy working with the doctor friend of Maisie's. Maisie must commit a "pardonable lie" of omission by not revealing the grandmother's secrets to protect her and to allow her to continue her important spy work. But she does unite the daughter of her friend's brother with her friend and she acquaints her friend with where and how her brother died.

The only mystery left unsolved is the death of the "uncle". While Maisie cannot find who actually killed the "uncle", she is able to prove that the young woman could not have killed him. The girl had a broken arm that was not healed properly which had resulted in a badly deformed and weak right arm. She was right handed and would not have had sufficient strength to have stabbed the "uncle" in the chest through muscle and bone to puncture his heart. After orthopedic specialists were consulted, the girl was released.

In a surprise sort of ending Maisie tracks down one of the psychics among the many who plied their exploitive trade fleecing bereaved relatives of their money by lying about contacting their deceased loved ones in the spirit world. It turns out that this psychic was a young daughter of one of the criminal psychics that Maisie had testified against. The girl's mother had been sent to prison and died in prison. The girl had devoted her life to finding and killing Maisie for what she had done to her mother. So, the attempts on Maisie's life had nothing to do with the three investigations. Ms Winspear led us to believe that the attempts were related through clever interplay between her many characters and veiled threats in her well plotted story. In the end all of the loose pieces of the puzzle were in place and the picture was complete.

"Pardonable Lies" is a very satisfying tale told by a very accomplished author. Winspear has created a character with whom I would like to continue a relationship. If you liked Mrs Marple, or Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, or Mrs Pollifax you will surely love Maisie Dobbs. I want to read more and I am sure you will too. I give "Pardonable Lies" a 7 of 10 on the Weaver meter. Try it yourself.

Enjoy, Sid