In this Maisie Dobbs story, she is commuting from her estate in Kent where her dad, stepmom, adopted daughter, and various other friends are ensconced and (hopefully) safe from frequent London bombings, and London where she’s trying to maintain her detective business and the secret war intelligence duties for which she’s been recruited. And in this story, those roles may be intertwined.
One-night, young Freddie Hackett, employed as a runner delivering messages after school for various British agencies, witnesses a brutal murder. By the time he can report what he saw to Scotland Yard, the body has disappeared, so the Yard is not inclined to believe him, even after a body matching Freddy’s description is pulled from the Thames. Ultimately, Freddy finds his way to Maisie, who promises to look into the matter. While on a trip to Scotland, on her secret war department duties, Maisie is startled to see a man who matches Freddy’s description of the assailant.
Both of her colleagues, Inspector Caldwell at Scotland Yard and Robbie McFarlane at the Special Operations Executive (an agency involved in training and inserting people into France to help with resistance efforts against the Germans), urge her to drop her investigation. But of course, she can’t or won’t. It aggravates Maisie that officials are so willing to discount and ignore Freddie’s story merely because he is a child, and absent proof that he was mistaken, sees no reason not to pursue her inquiries into the apparent murder.
This is an interesting and complicated story taking place in wartime where the answers are not always as clear cut as we might like them to be. Maisie’s personal life is getting complicated as well, and she must also deal with her feelings of guilt due to the death of a close family friend. And, the stories provide insight into life in England during World War II while dealing with rationing, normal problems like child rearing, and the daily fear of bombing.
