Maisie has been hired to investigate the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old boy, Joseph Combes. Great Britain is again at war with Germany.

Maisie was a nurse in World War One then trained to be a psychologist/investigator after the war. This is book fourteen in the Maisie Dobbs series. May she shine on the literary scene for many books to come.' The setting matters, but what may matter more is the lovely, sometimes poetic way Winspear pushes her heroine forward. As Maisie's inquiry reveals a possible link to the London underworld, another mother is worried about a missing son - but this time the boy in question is one beloved by Maisie.Īs USA Today's Robert Bianco says, 'with clarity and economy, Winspear lays the historical groundwork. With Britons facing what has become known as 'the Bore War' - nothing much seems to have happened yet - Maisie Dobbs is asked to investigate the disappearance of a local lad, a young apprentice craftsman working on a 'hush-hush' government contract.

Maisie Dobbs - 'a female investigator every bit as brainy and battle-hardened as Lisbeth Salander' (Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air), faces danger and intrigue on the home front during World War II in this poignant entry (number 14) in Jacqueline Winspear's New York Times best-selling series - 'a series that seems to get better with every entry' (Tom Holland, Wall Street Journal).

To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear