Receiving a polite brush-off from the police, Georgina Bassington-Hope seeks help from Maisie Dobbs in her quest for the murderer of her brother the artist Nick Bassington-Hope. There is however no evidence to support Georgina belief that her brother has been murdered. But in the light of Georgina’s passionate belief Maisie accepts the case.
Maisie Dobbs is an investigator and a psychologist and her first task is to know Nick Bassington-Hope. To this end she sets out to meet his closest friends and his family, and to visit the scene of his death - the Mayfair gallery where he was setting up his much-anticipated exhibition. A veteran of the Great War Nick’s major work which was to receive it’s first showing the day after his death, but it is mysteriously missing, and no one can locate it.
Maisie’s investigation takes her from Mayfair to the beaches of Dungeness. Although the year is 1931, the tentacles of the Great War still cast a long shadow over both the Bassington-Hope’s and Maisie, who is still fragile from her breakdown. I have enjoyed all the books in this series but this is the best.
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Lizzie Hayes
Earlier books in the series are Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies