I am pleased to review my second book in the Maisie Dobbs series, Elegy for Eddie. I was sent this book at no charge for my honest review.
About the Book:
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 30, 2012)
My Opinion:
This is the ninth Maisie Dobbs novel from the pen of Ms. Winspear. She has a very loyal following and I can understand why. I reviewed my first of her books, The Mapping of Love and Death back in March and I, like many others fell in love with Maisie. She is a strong, intelligent character dealing with life’s messy issues and the aftermath of one war with the rumblings of another just beginning.
This book begins as old friends of Maisie’s father from her early days in Lambeth come to her about the death of a kindly young man, Eddie Pettit. His death was called an accident but they feel it was murder so they have come to Maisie for help in proving it. Maisie remembers Eddie from her younger days and can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt him; he was a little slow and just plain kind to everyone he met.
As Maisie investigates she finds that Eddie had found himself involved in something he did not understand at all, nor could he have comprehended it. He was being used and it ended very badly for him and for others. I won’t write more than that so as to not ruin plot points but Eddie certainly didn’t deserve what happened to him.
The story has several plots that intertwine all coming together at the end and Ms. Winspear keeps them rolling along without difficulty but I don’t understand this Maisie from the Maisie in the last book. She is a very detail oriented, upright, moral woman who does not let things slide and yet in this book all manner of murder and mayhem get overlooked for reasons that are not really well explained. The “greater good” is implied but not given as the definitive reason and it’s disturbing to see Maisie overlook murder and revenge murder. She also spends an inordinate amount of time dithering over her relationship with her boyfriend. OK – she was once a maid and he is of the upper class. OK – he has oodles of family money and she just came into money. Just either get on with it or not. Don’t spend half of the book whining about it. It got old.
I will not give up on Maisie because of this read. I will most certainly read either earlier books or the next book in the series but if she doesn’t get back to the form she showed in The Mapping of Love and Death I will be re-evaluating my love affair with Maisie and her adventures.
You can see the rest of the Tour Schedule for Elegy for Eddie
You can purchase Elegy for Eddie on Amazon.com
You can purchase The Mapping of Love and Death on Amazon.com
Disclosure: I received a copy of Elegy for Eddie from TLC Book Tours gratis. Any opinions expressed are my honest opinions and were not impacted by my receipt of the free book. I received no monetary compensation for this post.
