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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
An excellent read, Maisie Dobbs is a competent and enjoyable main character and her keen perception allows her to solve even the most puzzling mystery
Although none of this series hold a candle to the first, Maisie Dobbs, I enjoyed this one more than the last couple. Perhaps this is because Maisie seemed a little less than the disgustingly perfect character she has become. And the academic setting and proto-Nazi politics forming at the time were very interesting. She still does everything she attempts too well, and her newly inherited wealth makes things even easier for her, it was a decent little mystery.
Maisie Dobbs never disappoints. -- Recommended by staffer Sonia.
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slesson%20in%20secrets%20winspear__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=pearl
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slesson%20in%20secrets%20winspear__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=pearl
It's 1932 and Maisie Dobbs is recruited by the British Secret Service to try to uncover any activities "not in the interest of His Majesty's government" Working undercover she is a junior lecturer in Philosophy at a small, private college in Cambridge which is dedicated to the cause of international peace and cooperation. Then, of course, a prominent member of the college administration is found dead and Maisie is caught up in the investigation. The novel is well-written and squarely set in the political environment of the early 1930s--the Great Depression, fall-out from World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, and the rise of fascism in both Italy and Germany. An interesting twist in the Maisie Dobbs series.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
I'm really enjoying these middle series books. I feel like the author has finally let Maisie not be so annoyingly perfect and the mysteries and plots have gotten a bit more complex. She's also done away (mostly) with the woo-woo stuff and Maisie's "Intuition."
This is the eighth in the Maisie Dobbs series of novels but the first I've read. Maisie Dobbs is one of those slightly unbelievable characters who populate these sorts of mystery novels—born into a working-class English family in the late nineteenth century, she goes into service but is Discovered as a bright young thing, goes to Cambridge, serves as a nurse during the Great War, and eventually becomes a private investigator and the heir to a comfortable fortune. Did I mention that even in 1932 she's pretty prescient about the rise of fascism and she's being wooed by a viscount? Sigh.
All that said, as a character, Maisie is commonsensical enough that all these superlative attributes don't truly grate, though her tendency to arrange things for other people without their knowledge does, at times, get a little Emma Woodhouse. The mystery isn't the best, but it's diverting. The prose never rises above the serviceable, and is occasionally somewhat clunky ("She shook her head, as if to get the image out of her head"), but if you're a fan of this sort of cosy, history-as-set-dressing mystery, you'll probably enjoy A Lesson in Secrets.
There is an additional level of enjoyment—for certain values of "enjoyment"—to be gained from listening to this in audiobook. The reader is an American attempting English accents, and while that's obvious when she's speaking as Maisie—in a vaguely southern, middle-class English accent—it's not too terrible. But as soon as she attempts anything else it's hilarious. Her attempt at a Scottish accent had me laughing out loud on my walk home—I don't think she's ever heard a Glaswegian in her life—and both her vowels and her word pronunciations were off when she tried to change class registers. Most damning of all, when voicing a character who has an Oxbridge education, was the mangling of French, German and Latin phrases. A modicum of research would have shown that "educare" is not a three syllable word in Latin!
All that said, as a character, Maisie is commonsensical enough that all these superlative attributes don't truly grate, though her tendency to arrange things for other people without their knowledge does, at times, get a little Emma Woodhouse. The mystery isn't the best, but it's diverting. The prose never rises above the serviceable, and is occasionally somewhat clunky ("She shook her head, as if to get the image out of her head"), but if you're a fan of this sort of cosy, history-as-set-dressing mystery, you'll probably enjoy A Lesson in Secrets.
There is an additional level of enjoyment—for certain values of "enjoyment"—to be gained from listening to this in audiobook. The reader is an American attempting English accents, and while that's obvious when she's speaking as Maisie—in a vaguely southern, middle-class English accent—it's not too terrible. But as soon as she attempts anything else it's hilarious. Her attempt at a Scottish accent had me laughing out loud on my walk home—I don't think she's ever heard a Glaswegian in her life—and both her vowels and her word pronunciations were off when she tried to change class registers. Most damning of all, when voicing a character who has an Oxbridge education, was the mangling of French, German and Latin phrases. A modicum of research would have shown that "educare" is not a three syllable word in Latin!
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
Aaarghhhhh! Probably my least favorite. So much filler, and Pris was up to her normal passive-aggressive dismissal of Maisie.