The Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs)
“This final episode in the series of an independent woman who’s risen to financial and emotional security through her investigations must diverge from the classic crime fiction patterns in order to form a sweet and safe conclusion.”
The first book in this series from Jacqueline Winspear, named simply Maisie Dobbs, was published by Soho Crime/Soho Press in 2003. The author’s letter at the front of this 18th and final book of the series says, “I have taken a young woman named Maisie Dobbs from girlhood to middle age, and through two world wars with another conflict in between.” Winspear writes that she intended to mesh family saga and mystery series. Because this is British fiction, she’s also explored many of the marks of class in a culture that is much adored by readers and film fans alike.
In the first few titles, Dobbs studied with an intriguing mentor, Maurice Blanche, and her transition from maid-in-service to clever private investigator is one result of Maurice’s gift of education—an education that dips into mystical self-awareness and makes those early volumes especially intriguing. Those are also the books that sift through the effects of the Great War, known now as World War I, both at home and abroad. A century of reflection surely made it easier to write about that war; the later volumes that send Maisie into the dangers of Nazi Germany leave behind historical contemplation and instead focus on moral imperatives of truth and loyalty.
Making The Comfort of Ghosts into a finale costs some of the freshness of the earlier work, as each thread gets neatly woven and knotted off in the tapestry. It’s set in 1945, soon after the end of the Second World War, and Maisie stumbles into a group of young people hiding out in London. In fact, they’ve taken sanctuary in Maisie’s own home, the one where she’d long ago scrubbed floors but now possesses.
This allows Winspear to give a series flashback: “It was the house where she had been discovered studying in the library at two in the morning” and where Lady Rowan, then the owner, had enlisted Dr. Maurice Blanche to help lift up the working-class “girl” with the brave intellect. “Maurice became Maisie’s mentor, and in time she would learn the craft of forensic investigation when she accepted the offer to become his assistant, joining him in his work as an investigator.” (Brace for more than the usual share of such flashbacks; this volume really is all about knitting up the tale.)
The young people don’t trust Maisie—why should they? “We’ve been thinking about it, and you’ve been very helpful and all that, but people like you are nice for a reason.” In this case, the reason goes well beyond attempting to evict the squatters (and squatting had some legal rights at the time): Odd ties to political and economic leaders in Maisie’s current circle indicate the youths have been trained for some sort of war-related mission, and the end of hostilities seems to have stranded them. More disturbing is Maisie’s growing suspicion that these youths know too much and have become a political risk to someone who may not hesitate to erase the complications of their presence.
Of course, Maisie’s urge to protect those who shouldn’t have to face danger (and the war should be over! why is there still danger?) complicates her life and the lives of her close friends. In order to get on with the path she’s determined to take into domesticity and parenting, she’ll commit herself just one more time to investigation and justice—even if it means she needs to go back to connections from her past that may not be either trustworthy or safe.
This final episode in the series of an independent woman who’s risen to financial and emotional security through her investigations must diverge from the classic crime fiction patterns in order to form a sweet and safe conclusion—which may not be Winspear’s strongest area. All things considered, though, she pulls it off “quite well,” as Maisie herself might comment.