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Maisie Dobbs’ first assignment for the British Secret Service takes her undercover to Cambridge as a professor—and leads to the investigation of a web of activities being conducted by the emerging Nazi Party.
In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs’ career takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities “not in the inter-ests of His Majesty’s government.”
When the college’s controversial pacifist founder and principal is murdered, Maisie is directed to stand back as Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane and Detective Chief Inspector Richard Stratton spearhead the investigation. She soon discovers, however, that the circumstances of Liddicote’s death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty and students under her surveillance.
As the storm clouds of World War II gather on the horizon, this pivotal chapter in the life of Maisie Dobbs foreshadows new challenges and powerful enemies facing the psychologist and investigator.
As usual, it is always a pleasure to pick up a new installment in this brilliant series by Jacqueline Winspear, though this time there was no ‘picking up’ involved – I received an early review copy through Net Galley.
Like with other books in this series, A Lesson in Secrets
Then Maisie gets roped in to do some investigative work for the Secret Intelligence Services – take up a job as a junior lecturer at a Cambridge college and give her superiors an “in” to possible subversive activities there. The college in question? headed by a man who during WWI wrote a controversial children’s book. But before Maisie even gets comfortable in her new position, the controversial principal Greville Liddicote, is murdered and the suspects abound. Meanwhile back in london, Sandra, a former maid at Ebury Place is in trouble – her husband has died in what seems to be an accident, but Sandra has other suspicions and she decides to uncover what some very powerful people would prefer remained concealed.
A Lesson in Secrets
If A Mapping of Love and Death
This is why I believe (and I might be totally wrong) that we may be seeing more of the plots presented in A Lesson in Secret
As for Maisie’s personal life – after all the progress we saw in The Mapping of Love and Death
All in all this was a solid addition to a marvelous series, and while it wasn’t my favorite, I really did enjoy it and am as always, left on tenterhooks waiting to find out what Maisie will be doing next.
Happy Reading everybody…
Instead, the character came to me while I was daydreaming in bumper-to-bumper traffic. What I refer to as my “moment of artistic grace.”
JW: No, Maisie is not based on anyone I know, and I certainly do not see myself in Maisie – far from it!
JW: No, not really. 
and a myriad of other action, mystery and thriller writers. I think it was the gathering of clues, the subtle changes of plot direction, and the twists in the end that kept me going back to read these books. I wanted to be kept guessing, but I wanted to be able to crack the mystery or crime before the author revealed it to me. 
Ok… so the title may seem a little harsh or whatever, but in a way the Nancy Drew mysteries are responsible for my book addiction. 
when I transferred to a public school and we started having big book fairs I remember realizing that my parents didn’t mind buying me books. That realization was like a light bulb moment. I figured out that I could shop for books but because I didn’t really read much for recreation I had no idea what books to put on my tab…and since my parents were willing to shell out $$$$ for books I wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste! I watched what the other more popular kids were reading (remember I am a new kid and low man on the social totem pole at that time) and they were getting lots of Nancy Drew books, American girls, and Harry Potter. 
Harry Potter looked rather ambitious for my first time out and the American Girl books I already owned, though I hadn’t read them yet. So, I got a bunch of Nancy Drew books and a couple others that I thought had cool covers like “Wolf Brother” by Michelle Paver, “Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snikett and “Princess Academy” by Shannon Hale. I even squeezed in some non-book items like smelly pens, stickers, a poster and a webkinz puppy (don’t judge).
sick
or something because I was so absorbed by the story and the characters! Books were fun! Who knew?!?
The moral of this story folks, it only takes one good story to make a bookaholic out of anyone. I read so much now. Sometimes as many as 6 books a week (my benders) but almost always at least 1 (I’m a functioning bookaholic with school , theatre, and track competing for my time). But, I have The Nancy Drew books to thank for sparking that reading passion, and the other books I’ve read after that for fanning the flame. 
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. 
. Even the suspects are well developed and intriguing on their own. I would easily read about any number of their stories alone. 
First a mysterious shamrock appears on Miss Wink’s front door. Then Kate and Mickey find the sign on their new clubhouse: “The Green Shamrock Gang Was Here.” Something very strange is going on in Springvale – a real challenge for the Dixon twins’ talents. Mickey Dixon wants to be a sleuth like Sherlock Holmes when she grows up. Kate hopes to be a famous scientist. Together, they make a great detective team. But this case is different from any of their other adventures and it takes both twins’ skills to solve the mystery. Before the busy St. Patrick’s Day ends, the twins make some surprising discoveries and, best of all, have a new friend. (middle grade)
Not many people in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, knew Old Dan Malone. The grizzled barkeep’s social circle was limited to the rough-hewn lobstermen and other assorted toughs that frequented his bar, a derelict main street dive called, appropriately, the Bilge. But when his body is found bobbing in the town’s icy harbor, Lucy Stone, ace reporter for the Pennysaver newspaper, makes getting to know more about Old Dan a priority. And apparently, there’s lots to learn. 
An off-duty police officer is shot and ex-nun Chris Bennett and her police-detective boyfriend find this motiveless murder puzzling. Praying for a break, Chris pursues a killer along strange paths: a pilgrimage that takes her from a suburban convent to a Brooklyn fruit market, and deep into the sacrosanct world of the NYPD–and ultimately back to the deadly place where it all began.
Inspector Helmes and his trusty sidekick, Watkins, know they have their work cut out for them in solving the murder of Paddy O’Toole, the Grand Leprechaun. However, nothing can prepare them for the strange lineup of suspects they encounter at the annual Holiday Icon Convention. Another holiday short from the author of DEATH BY JELLO and CHRISTMAS IN KILLARNEY.
It’s up to a Brooklyn teenager to save her family’s land in Ireland, expose a murderer, stop terrorist activity, and begin training to save the entire faeire race from the evil influence of Morrigan, the Goddess of War-with a little help from a handsome wizard and a British secret agent-all while on a two-week vacation!Bridget is a street-smart Brooklyn girl who is surprised to find that she has inherited land overseas. She sets off to explore her new Irish holdings, but with relatives like the former queen of all faeire, the king of the leprechauns, and an eccentric aunt, Bridget finds her Irish vacation more than she can handle. That is, until a Brittany spaniel teaches her to focus, trust, and, most of all, let go of her fear. Adding to Bridget’s worry is the damage that cow patties, office break-ins, and ancient fairy catacombs can do to a nice pair of Jimmy Choos…With adventure, mystery, and wry humor, The Brooklyn Leprechaun is a mad romp from the streets of Brooklyn to the myths and legends of the Irish countryside 
Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as family. But as they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface. Family secrets ensnare them both, as Tolliver learns his father is out of jail and Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister Cameron so many years before. And what she finds will change her world forever.
Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora “Roe” Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It’s a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal “copycat” killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.
in 1993 to read at a hospital while visiting where my grandmother was staying for some health issues. She loved a good mystery and I loved a good murder story so logically this seemed like the perfect book to share. I would read to her and when she would fall asleep, I ‘d just keep reading. When she would wake she would ask what happened while she was away and I would get her caught up and she would always have an interesting “real life” tie in to how somebody in the story was like “so in so” from her town, or how back in the day there was this scandal…we had such fun bonding over this book. 
Anyway, through my online research I’d picked out a body dump site and crime-scene location for the book – Castaic Lake – and decided my characters would live and party in Santa Clarita. However, Santa Clarita wasn’t what I’d envisaged. It was way too clean cut and “suburban” for my characters and when I drove through it I couldn’t see a bar in sight. That night, as I had dinner with the family friends I was staying with in LA, I was asked:
Harlen’s stand alone stories. I went to the bookshop, put my hand on the shelf to choose one, and promptly took it away. I couldn’t do it! I didn’t want to embark on a read with characters I’d never see again. How weird to learn that about yourself at the age of fifty? That’s why a writer like Michael Connelly suits me so well. He alternates between three main characters in his books who intersect loosely with each other. As a writer, this gives him the opportunity to stay fresh. And for the reader, there is that gratifying sense of connection and “family”.
scimitar. Tara Sharp (my main character) has terrible trouble getting a word in amongst that lot! But they are her (and my) crime-solving family. As I’m about to embark on book three, I’m anxious to get back and see what’s been happening to them while I’ve been away. Odd, huh?
daymstephens
Paperback Dolls
Doll KittNLuv
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