dailyBooks - To Die but Once - A Maisie Dobbs Novel​​​​​​​ by Jacqueline Winspear | Conversation Starters

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Jacqueline Winspears

To Die but Once

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Introducing To Die but Once

T O DIE BUT ONCE BY JACQUELINE WINSPEAR is the latest in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series following miss Maisie as she traverses life in the early 1900s. To Die but Once brings readers to the edge of their seats as they try to help figure out with Maisie just what is happening to friends and neighbors.

To Die but Once begins in the spring of 1940 on the brink of World War II. Maisie Dobbs, who has worked as a nurse, enquiry agent, spy, psychologist and now private investigator, has been trying to figure out how a local boy in her area died. Maisies life hasnt been easy as her husband died in a plane crash and on top of that she had a miscarriage. However, she works diligently as a way to overcome her own problems and help others. Her work has put her in dangerous situations such as working as a nurse during the Spanish Civil War and being in even more harrowing danger as she spied on Hitlers Germany and gave her findings to Britain. While Maisie is working on being able to adopt Anna, a young refugee child who is currently living in her home in Kent, Maisie is asked for help by her neighbor and local pub owner, Phil Coombes. Coombes asks Maisie to look after for his son, Joe, as he has been missing weekly family calls home as well has been complaining of having terrible headaches lately. Maisie learns that Joe has been working at a company called Yates and Sons where he traveled the country to apply a type of paint that is fire-retardant to various buildings on air bases. The fourteen-year-old hasnt contacted his family since a few months into his job, while usually the boy was faithful to keep his family updated. Maisie, understandably wants to help and uses the gas coupons she has left to try tracking Joe down, while her assistant, Billy, would look into the painting company Yates and Sons. Maisie investigations ends with finding poor young Joe dead on railroad tracks. While the police believe the boy may have been drunk and accidentally and jumped off the wall and onto the rails, Maisie believes differently. Her suspicions are more confirmed when the local coroner ends up discovering odd lesions on the boys brain. Maisie becomes even more suspicious when she notices that the Coombes family seems to be living above the means one would suspect of a pub owner. Maisie looks into the Coombes family to try to find out how they are able to live above what their pub could possibly be providing. With the help of her assistant, Billy, Maisie Dobbs is able to find out that Mrs. Coombes has family relations with a very dangerous and infamous criminal. This insight leads Maisie to believe that the painting governmental painting contract is actually part of a scam and Maisie is determined to find out the truth behind Joes death. All the while Maisie learns that her godson and a close friend has snuck off to try to help rescue what is left of the British army that has been trapped on the French borders between the advancing German army and the cold English Channel.

Readers familiar with the Maisie Dobbs books will find the fourteenth book to have a lovingly familiar reading style to it. With the typical suspicions, jumping to conclusions, and the hard work in every mystery novel, readers will love the simplicity, yet intriguing, way that Winspear writes her books. Throughout the story itself is the impending doom of World War II, which can be seen through the careful amount of details and research that Winspear has put into her novels. Readers will be able to feel the tension of the impending war as Maisie keeps forgetting to have her gasmask in her possession, how the air is constantly filled with barrage balloons used to attempt to trick German aircraft and to protect the buildings around them, and the blackout curtains that had to be used at night to secure all the homes from light coming out. The worry of neighbors being secret spies for the Germans also keeps Maisie and her neighbors on their toes as they try to live life on the edges of London. Fans of Jacqueline Winspears writing and of Maisie Dobbss thrilling life will fall in love once more with To Die but Once as they read her latest adventure set in Britain during the time before World War II.

Introducing the Author

J ACQUELINE WINSPEAR WAS BORN AND RAISED in a small town in England, an area of south-eastern England that contains Dover and Canterbury. She got a degree at the University of Londons Institute of Education with a goal to become a writer. Winspear was able to start off her career in writing for higher education as well as for marketing communications. However, wanting a change of scenery, Winspear moved to the United States in 1990 as a personal/professional coach in business. But her heart was set on being a writer, not a personal coach. Jacqueline worked hard and found a way to become a contributor to various journals as she wrote articles on international education, travel and essays. Her writing was found in well-known magazines and journals such as The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, The Washington Post and more. She was even able to publish some of her short stories in international publications and had the opportunity to record her essays on radio in San Francisco on the KQED radio station. Winspear was also able to add contributions to anthologies of essays and short stories as well, rounding out her writing skills.