Good Reads / Community Library Notes
To Die But Once
Jacqueline Winspear
Review by Priscilla Comen
To Die But Once
Jacqueline Winspear
Review by Priscilla Comen
To Die But Once, by Jacqueline Winspear, is her latest delight filled story with Maisie Dobbs, detective/psychologist as heroine. Joey Coombs is missing and Maisie makes it her business to find him. When she does, he has fallen from a high place and is dead. He may have been hit on the head before falling, or was he pushed? She finds that he has been working with chemicals and paints to camouflage buildings to prevent fires from German bombs. He has terrible headaches.
Maisie’s associate, Billy, has a son, Bobby, who wants to join the army and fight the Germans. Author Winspear gives us the back story of Maisie, her training with Maurice and her marriage to James who died testing a new airplane. She investigates the paint company Joey worked for and finds she’s being followed by a large black motor car. Oh, oh.
Winspear makes us feel the tension of the people who expect Hitler’s army to invade their Britain. Searchlights cross the skies, black out curtains cover windows, and barrage balloons fly overhead. Maisie’s good friend, Priscilla, has a son, Tim, who also wants to help the war effort. He has gone with a friend in the friend’s family motor- boat to rescue the British soldiers who are trapped on the French coast being bombed by German aircraft. All available boats, sailing, motor, or pleasure craft, have been asked by the government to help in this rescue operation.
Maisie goes to see the head of the Yates paint distribution company, the chief of the local police, and Caldwell, whom she knows at Scotland Yard. She leaves no stone unturned in her attempt to solve this mystery of Joe Coombs’ death. Did Joey know something dangerous about the paint? Winspear describes very well the scene at Dunkirk beach, the slaughter as soldiers wait to return home.
Will Tim and his friend return safely from Dunkirk? Will Maisie discover why Joe Coomes died? Find out in this most recent Maisie Dobbs novel on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Maisie’s associate, Billy, has a son, Bobby, who wants to join the army and fight the Germans. Author Winspear gives us the back story of Maisie, her training with Maurice and her marriage to James who died testing a new airplane. She investigates the paint company Joey worked for and finds she’s being followed by a large black motor car. Oh, oh.
Winspear makes us feel the tension of the people who expect Hitler’s army to invade their Britain. Searchlights cross the skies, black out curtains cover windows, and barrage balloons fly overhead. Maisie’s good friend, Priscilla, has a son, Tim, who also wants to help the war effort. He has gone with a friend in the friend’s family motor- boat to rescue the British soldiers who are trapped on the French coast being bombed by German aircraft. All available boats, sailing, motor, or pleasure craft, have been asked by the government to help in this rescue operation.
Maisie goes to see the head of the Yates paint distribution company, the chief of the local police, and Caldwell, whom she knows at Scotland Yard. She leaves no stone unturned in her attempt to solve this mystery of Joe Coombs’ death. Did Joey know something dangerous about the paint? Winspear describes very well the scene at Dunkirk beach, the slaughter as soldiers wait to return home.
Will Tim and his friend return safely from Dunkirk? Will Maisie discover why Joe Coomes died? Find out in this most recent Maisie Dobbs novel on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.