To celebrate the release of Jacqueline Winspear’s Elegy for Eddie, we’re planning a blog tour for the whole Maisie Dobbs series.
Here’s the schedule for the tour:
March 5th – 9th – The first six books in the Maisie Dobbs series
March 12th – 16th – The Mapping of Love and Death
March19th – 23rd – A Lesson in Secrets
March 26th – 30th – Elegy for Eddie
March 5th – March 9th
About Maisie Dobbs
Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, began her working life at the age of thirteen as a servant in a Belgravia mansion, only to be discovered reading in the library by her employer, Lady Rowan Compton. Fearing dismissal, Maisie is shocked when she discovers that her thirst for education is to be supported by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche. But The Great War intervenes in Maisie’s plans, and soon after commencement of her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas. Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.
About Birds of a Feather
An eventful year has passed for Maisie Dobbs. Since starting a one-woman private investigation agency in 1929 London, she now has a professional office in Fitzroy Square and an assistant, the happy-go-lucky Billy Beale. She has proven herself as a psychologist and investigator, and has even won over Detective Inspector Stratton of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad—an admirable achievement for a woman who worked her way from servant to scholar to sleuth, and who also served as a battlefield nurse in the Great War.
It’s now the early Spring of 1930. Stratton is investigating a murder case in Coulsden, while Maisie has been summoned to Dulwich to find a runaway heiress. The woman is the daughter of Joseph Waite, a wealthy self-made man who has lavished her with privilege but kept her in a gilded cage. His domineering ways have driven her off before, and now she’s bolted again.
About Pardonable Lies
In the third novel of this unique and masterly crime series, a deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton, KC, to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but also to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world. Determined to prove Ralph Lawton either dead or alive, Maisie is plunged into a case that tests her spiritual strength, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission will bring her to France and reunite her with her old friend Priscilla Evernden, who lost three brothers in the war, one of whom has an intriguing connection to the case.
Set against a finely drawn portrait of life between the World Wars, Pardonable Lies is “a thrilling mystery that will enthrall fans of Jacqueline Winspear’s heroine and likely win her new ones” (Detroit Free Press).
About Messenger of Truth
London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nick’s twin sister, Georgina, a wartime journalist and a infamous figure in her own right, isn’t convinced.
When the authorities refuse to consider her theory that Nick was murdered, Georgina seeks out a fellow graduate from Girton College, Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, for help. Nick was a veteran of World War I, and before long the case leads Maisie to the desolate beaches of Dungeness in Kent, and into the sinister underbelly of the city’s art world.
About An Incomplete Revenge
With the country in the grip of economic malaise, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment to investigate 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 suggest a darker criminal element at work. A peculiar secrecy shrouds the village, and ultimately Maisie must draw on her finely-honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases yet.
About Among the Mad
Christmas Eve, 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the Prime Minister’s office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Maisie by name. Tapped by Scotland Yard’s elite Special Branch to be a special adviser on the case, Maisie is soon involved in a race against time to find a man who proves he has the knowledge and will to inflict destruction on thousands of innocent people.
In Among the Mad, Jacqueline Winspear combines a heart-stopping story with a rich evocation of a fascinating period to create her most compelling and satisfying novel yet.
March 12th – 16th
About The Mapping of Love and Death
August 1914. As Michael Clifton is mapping land he has just purchased in California’s beautiful Santa Ynez Valley, war is declared in Europe—and duty-bound to his father’s native country, the young cartographer soon sets sail for England to serve in the British army. Three years later, he is listed as missing in action.
April 1932. After Michael’s remains are unearthed in France, his parents retain London psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs, hoping she can find the unnamed nurse whose love letters were among their late son’s belongings. It is a quest that leads Maisie back to her own bittersweet wartime love—and to the stunning discovery that Michael Clifton was murdered in his dugout. Suddenly an exposed web of intrigue and violence threatens to ensnare the dead soldier’s family and even Maisie herself as she attempts to cope with the impending loss of her mentor and the unsettling awareness that she is once again falling in love.
March 19th – 23rd
About A Lesson in Secrets
In the summer of 1932, the career of psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment from the British Secret Service. Sent to pose as a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge, she will monitor any activities “not in the interests of His Majesty’s government.”
When the college’s controversial pacifist founder, Greville Liddicote, is murdered, however, Maisie is directed to stand back as her colleagues in Scotland Yard spearhead the investigation. But she soon discovers that the circumstances of Liddicote’s death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty members and students under her surveillance. To unravel this web, the investigator must overcome a reluctant Secret Service, discover shameful hidden truths about Britain’s conduct during the Great War, and face off against the rising power of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—the Nazi Party—as the storm clouds of World War II gather on the horizon.
March 26th – 30th
About Elegy for Eddie
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Harper (March 27, 2012)
In this latest entry in Jacqueline Winspear’s acclaimed, bestselling mystery series—“less whodunits than why-dunits, more P.D. James than Agatha Christie” (USA Today)—Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet, a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power. Perfect for fans of A Lesson in Secrets, The Mapping of Love and Death, or other Maisie Dobbs mysteries—and an ideal place for new readers to enter the series—Elegy for Eddie is an incomparable work of intrigue and ingenuity, full of intimate descriptions and beautifully painted scenes from between the World Wars, from one of the most highly acclaimed masters of mystery, Jacqueline Winspear.
In addition to the blog tour, the following Twitter chats have been scheduled. Discussions will be about Maisie, mysteries, and more. Follow the #Maisie hashtag on Twitter to participate:
NANCY PEARL
Author of the Book Lust series and NPR Commentator
Friday, March 16, 3 PM EST
JENNIFER BARTH
VP and Executive Editor, Harper Books
Friday, March 23, 3 PM EST
ELAINE PETROCELLI
Founder and President of Book Passage
Friday, March 30, 3 PM EST
JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series
The discussion of Maisie Dobbs on Twitter will run all month long and beyond, so be sure to follow the #Maisie hashtag so you can participate.
About Jacqueline Winspear
Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in the county of Kent, England. Following higher education at the University of London’s Institute of Education, Jacqueline worked in academic publishing, in higher education, and in marketing communications in the UK.
She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and while working in business and as a personal / professional coach, Jacqueline embarked upon a life-long dream to be a writer.
A regular contributor to journals covering international education, Jacqueline has published articles in women’s magazines and has also recorded her essays for KQED radio in San Francisco. She lives in California and is a regular visitor to the United Kingdom and Europe.
Jacqueline’s novels thus far—Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies, Messenger of Truth, An Incomplete Revenge, and Among the Mad, The Mapping of Love and Death, and A Lesson in Secrets are set in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with the roots of each story set in the Great War, 1914–1918. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards.
Find out more about Jacqueline at her website, www.jacquelinewinspear.com, and find her on Facebook.
Jacqueline’s Tour Stops
March 5th – 9th – The first six books in the Maisie Dobbs series
Monday, March 5th: The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom (Maisie Dobbs)
Monday, March 5th: Wordsmithonia (Maisie Dobbs)
Tuesday, March 6th: she reads and reads (Birds of a Feather)
Tuesday, March 6th: The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader (Birds of a Feather)
Tuesday, March 6th: A Few More Pages (Birds of a Feather)
Wednesday, March 7th: Books, Bells, & Beaux (Maisie Dobbs)
Wednesday, March 7th: The Book Garden (Pardonable Lies)
Wednesday, March 7th: Life In Review (Pardonable Lies)
Thursday, March 8th: A Book Geek (Messenger of Truth)
Thursday, March 8th: Wordsmithonia (Birds of a Feather)
Friday, March 9th: The Road to Here (An Incomplete Revenge)
Friday, March 9th: sidewalk shoes (An Incomplete Revenge)
Friday, March 9th: The Lost Entwife (Among the Mad)
Friday, March 9th: A Bookish Way of Life (Among the Mad)
Monday, March 12th: Reflections of a Bookaholic (Messenger of Truth)
March 12th – 16th – The Mapping of Love and Death
Monday, March 12th: Lit and Life
Tuesday, March 13th: A Worn Path
Wednesday, March 14th: Starting Fresh
Thursday, March 15th: Broken Teepee
Friday, March 16th: Unabridged Chick
March 19th – 23rd – A Lesson in Secrets
Monday, March 19th: M. Denise C.
Tuesday, March 20th: Wordsmithonia
Wednesday, March 21st: Diary of an Eccentric
Thursday, March 22nd: Savvy Verse & Wit
Friday, March 23rd: The Book Garden
March 26th – 30th – Elegy for Eddie
Monday, March 26th: Whimpulsive
Tuesday, March 27th: bookchickdi
Wednesday, March 28th: Devourer of Books
Wednesday, March 28th: cakes, tea and dreams
Friday, March 30th: Wordsmithonia
Friday, March 30th: Iwriteinbooks’s blog
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