An Incomplete Revenge
A Maisie
Dobbs Mystery
Jacqueline Winspear
Henry Holt (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-8050-8215-8 (0805082158)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8215-9 (9780805082159)
Publication Date: February 2008
List Price: $24.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work. As Maisie discovers, the villagers are bitterly prejudiced against outsiders who flock to Kent at harvest time—even more troubling, they seem possessed by the legacy of a wartime Zeppelin raid. Maisie grows increasingly suspicious of a peculiar secrecy that shrouds the village, and ultimately she must draw on all her finely honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases.
Review: Private
investigator Maisie Dobbs travels from London to Kent to do some
background work for a client pending his purchase of a commercial
property in An Incomplete Revenge,
the fifth mystery in this series by Jacqueline Winspear.
Maisie is grateful she has been retained on for an assignment during
the economic slowdown of the early 1930s in England. Corporate
executive James Compton wishes to purchase a brickworks in southern
England but is concerned that some petty crime and unexplained arson in
the area will make the decision difficult to justify to his backers. He
hires Maisie to look into the matter. Once there, she quickly
ascertains the source of the crime but is puzzled by the fires that
seem to occur every year on or about the anniversary of a Zeppelin bomb
that destroyed a home in the village. Her questions are met with steely
silence by the villagers, but her persistence eventually causes the
truth to come to light.
An Incomplete Revenge is
unquestionably a beautifully written and meticulously (if weakly)
plotted novel. The Kent countryside of England is richly drawn and the
characters of this period interesting and fully developed. The
narrative is descriptive, atmospheric, and poetic, at times lyrical.
Yet the story moves along so slowly and there seems to be so little
progress made in Maisie's investigation for long periods of time that
it loses much of its potential to fully capture the readers
imagination. And then there's the parallel story of Maisie's
relationship with the local gypsies. Though the supernatural elements
are rather overdone, there's a hint of intrigue here that remains
unresolved at the end of the book. Maybe it will return in a later
story.
Some of the inactivity in the story can be attributed to the continued
development of Maisie's character. Maisie ranks among the most
captivating in modern detective fiction and it's fascinating to watch
her grow and adapt. Her personal loss and how she reacts to it seem
very real. The relationship she has with her father is really quite
special. But it's fairly clear very early on who is behind the thefts
and it doesn't seem to be much of a secret who's behind the annual
fires, so one is left with a somewhat anti-climatic conclusion and a
bit of disappointment that there wasn't more to it all.
As a novel, or maybe an investigative effort, An Incomplete Revenge is
outstanding. As a mystery, less so. Still, it's always a treat to read
a Maisie Dobbs investigation, and this is no exception.
Special thanks to FSB Associates for providing an ARC of An Incomplete Revenge for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
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Mysteries in this series ...
Maisie Dobbs
Soho Press (Hardcover), July 2003
ISBN-10: 1-56947-330-7 (1569473307)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-330-6 (9781569473306)
Birds of a
Feather
Soho Press (Hardcover), May 2004
ISBN-10: 1-56947-368-4 (1569473684)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-368-9 (9781569473689)
Pardonable Lies
Henry Holt (Hardcover), August 2005
ISBN-10: 0-8050-7897-5 (0805078975)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7897-8 (9780805078978)
Messenger of Truth
Henry Holt (Hardcover), September 2006
ISBN-10: 0-8050-7898-3 (0805078983)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7898-5 (9780805078985)
An Incomplete Revenge
Henry Holt (Hardcover), February 2008
ISBN-10: 0-8050-8215-8 (0805082158)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8215-9 (9780805082159)
Omnimystery keywords for An Incomplete Revenge ...
Location(s) referenced: London, Kent, England.
