Part of Maisie Dobbs, book 13
First published 2017
September 3rd, 1939. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announces Britain's declaration of war against Germany. A Secret Service agent waits in Maisie Dobbs' flat with an urgent mission. Dr. Francesca Thomas needs Maisie to find who murdered a man who fled occupied Belgium as a child twenty-three years ago during the Great War. London transforms under the shadow of barrage balloons and bomb shelters. Within days, another Belgian refugee turns up dead. Maisie digs into these murders of the displaced from the previous war while a mysterious child enters her life. The little girl, Anna, arrives at Maisie's Kent home through Operation Pied Piper, the London evacuation program. Anna cannot or will not speak, and no one knows her family or how she got on the train. As Maisie pursues the killer, Britain prepares for invasion. The country faces its most dangerous moment, and Maisie approaches a turning point of her own.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, world-war-ii
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, secret-mission
Setting: Belgium, Britain, Kent, London
Period: 1939, Great War, World War I
335 pages · Hardcover · Harper
Content warnings: death, war