A Lesson in Secrets
This is Winspear’s eighth Maisie Dobbs novel, and like all the others it is well-plotted and enjoyable to read. In England between the wars, Maisie has been recruited by the British Secret Service to monitor activities at one of the colleges in Cambridge. Having secured a position as a philosophy lecturer, Maisie almost immediately becomes involved in unofficially investigating the murder of Greville Liddicote, the college’s controversial pacifist founder.
Although Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane and Detective Chief Inspector Stratton are called in to solve the murder, the suspicious activities of the college’s faculty and students soon have Maisie following her own leads. As in all good mysteries, there are multiple suspects and a variety of motives. There are additional minor plotlines, and characters from previous novels play small roles. Also, Maisie’s romance with James Compton moves forward although slowly.
At its heart, A Lesson in Secrets deals with the issue of pacifism and foreshadows much of the future events in Europe including the rise of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – the Nazi party. Although it is 1932, Winspear wants us to understand that many of the consequences of World War I are still lingering in English society decades later. We readers of course know of the outcome that Maisie and the British Secret Service can only suspect. Recommended.
