The Comfort of Ghosts
Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs unravels a profound mystery from her past in a war-torn nation grappling with its future.
London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Soon after a demobilized British soldier, ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, takes shelter with the group, Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners.
Maisie is deeply puzzled by the children's reticence. Their stories are evasive and, more mysteriously, they appear to possess self-defense skills one might expect of trained adults in wartime. Her quest to bring comfort and the promise of a future to the youngsters and to the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental aircraft. As Maisie picks apart the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.
The award-winning Maisie Dobbs series has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, readers who are drawn to a woman who is of her time, yet familiar in ours—and who inspires with her resilience and capacity for endurance at the worst of times. This final assignment of her own choosing not only opens a new future for Maisie Dobbs and her family, but serves as a fascinating portrayal of the challenges facing the people of Britain at the close of the Second World War.
Jacqueline Winspear
Jacqueline Winspear is the author of eighteen novels in the award-winning, New York Times, National and International bestselling series featuring psychologist-investigator Maisie Dobbs. In addition, Jacqueline’s 2023 non-series novel, The White Lady was a New York Times and National bestseller, and her 2014 WW1 novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was again a New York Times and National bestseller, as well as a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two non-fiction books, What Would Maisie Do? and an Edgar-nominated memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. Jacqueline’s work encompasses essays and journalism covering a wide range of subjects, from women working in wildfire management to articles on international education and social history.
Maisie Dobbs
Maisie Dobbs consists of seventeen books, and the series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.