THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR: A MAISIE DOBBS NOVEL (2021)
By Jacqueline Winspear
HarperCollins, 342 pages.
★★★ ½
British author Jacqueline Winspear has a successful franchise going in the character of Maisie Dobbs; The Consequences of Fear is said to be her 16th. It is the mark of a good writer that you don’t need to have read any of the others to come to know the characters or follow the story. In brief, though, Maisie Dobbs has (at least) a triple life. She is a private investigator (PI) with an assistant named Billy Beale, and also works for British intelligence under the imperious, often sexist leadership of Robert MacFarlane. In addition, she’s widowed but has an adopted daughter, Anna, who is the darling of a rural aristocratic family for whom Maisie is a veritable ward and for whom her father and mother-in-law are employees.
As we meet Maisie this time, she is beginning to feel her age. Her reputation was made during World War I, but it’s now 1941, Britain is at war a second time, and London is being bombed by the Germans on a regular basis. The tale’s mystery pivots around young Freddie Hackett, a lad swift of feet who is a runner/messenger for hire. In one of his dangerous sprints across London, Freddie thinks he witnessed a murder in progress. There are several problems. Scotland Yard doesn’t believe him and Freddie can’t speak up too much as he needs the coins he gets to buy food for himself and his mother, Grace. He also has to funnel just enough to his brutal father, Arthur, to waste at the pub. An abused wife and child is all Maisie needs to champion Freddie, but she too needs to tread lightly; there’s no solid evidence to support Freddie’s story and Maisie is already suspect for her unconventional life. Plus, she suspects that André Chaput, a celebrated French major from the previous war, might be the killer and no one wants to accept that. She grows even more suspicious, though, when the body and plane of a French flyer are pulled from the Thames.
The Consequences of Fear has a lot of irons in the fire, many of which involve the roles Maisie is trying to juggle. She is being courted by an American political attaché, Mark Scott, threatened by Freddie’s father, given butt-out orders from MacFarlane, and is charged with a highly secretive and distasteful task from him. Maisie has been handed the job of vetting French-fluent young women to be airlifted into Nazi-controlled France to gather intelligence. The life expectancy for those chosen is measured in weeks, not years, and two of the candidates are her niece and a woman she has known for 20 years, both of whom are beloved by her best friend and former nursing comrade Priscilla Everdeen. It’s not as if Priscilla doesn’t have enough on her plate with three sons in uniform. Maisie’s dilemma is stark: duty or friendship?
Maisie has to pick her way through entangling thorns that will reopen her own past, including trying to keep her cool and remember the lessons of her old mentor, furtively picking the brain of another former role model, consulting with a child trauma expert, keeping Freddie and Grace safe, acting as a role model for a young woman/driver aptly named Corporal Bright, and balancing her military orders with her PI instincts. Maisie has a well-defined sense of right and wrong, but such distinctions are not always clear during war—especially when honor and old scores are involved. Maisie has to come to terms with fear and consequences, both her own and that of others. As she learns, “Fear [is] sticky, like flypaper….” She’s not always successful in keeping everyone out of harm’s way.
This is a thrilling novel about the early days of World War II, a time in which normal life and customary morality were not drawn in either/or ways. Unfortunately, Winspear loses her footing as the novel draws to a conclusion that relies too heavily on forced coincidences. Though hers might not be a happily-ever-after ending, it leans in that direction. Maisie Dobbs is a marvel, but once we’ve seen her flaws and limitations, it’s hard to imagine her as a miracle worker. Or content, for that matter.
Rob Weir
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