Part of Maisie Dobbs
First published 2006
Sir Cecil Lawton arrives at Maisie Dobbs' London office with a desperate request from his dying wife. Agnes Lawton refuses to believe her aviator son Ralph died in the Great War. Her obsession has driven her to madness and into the hands of spiritualists who claim they can reach the dead. Maisie accepts the case, knowing it will force her back to France and the battlefield memories that still torment her. The investigation tests her faith in her mentor Maurice Blanche and reunites her with Priscilla Evernden, her college friend who lost three brothers in the war. As Maisie digs deeper, she discovers that one of Priscilla's dead brothers knew Ralph Lawton. The case becomes personal as Maisie confronts not only the mystery of Ralph's fate but her own unhealed wounds from the war that shaped her life.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, adult, adult-fiction, british-literature, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, emotionally-complex, introspective, melancholic, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-detective, found-family, friends-to-lovers, personal-investigation
Setting: London, France, Great War Battlefield
Period: 1920s, Post-World War I, Interwar Period
342 pages · Paperback · Picador
Content warnings: death, mental-illness, war