She served a nurse in the first World War, then entered professional life as a psychological investigator. Born the daughter of a peddler in 1910, Maisie grew up ‘in service’ and was fortunate enough to have her raw intelligence nurtured by a series of mentors, most of all Maurice Blanche. Maisie is our guide to the multiple social layers that comprised this Edwardian era. Maisie finds and loses love, experiences personal growth across many pages as she wrestles with her obligations and role in society. When Blanche retires, Dobbs takes over his private investigation business. After serving as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the war, she returned to London to work with her mentor, the accomplished detective Dr. Maisie Dobbs is a “psychologist and investigator” in post–World War I London. They all well-written, detailed, full of interesting robust characters, and whisk you into early 20th century England (mainly London) like nothing else. If you like period pieces, these books are for you – I’m looking at you, Belgravia Square where the rich folks in the original book live. Some spoilers so proceed at your own risk.īook 17 in the series was released this spring and I’ll be diving in soon, hopefully next week. I looked up the review and it is online if you want to see how to move me to spend money. In fact, it was in response to a review of Book 1 in the series on NPR that I actually BOUGHT the book. This is hands down one of my all-time favorite series of books.

Maisie dobbs in order