This Maise Dobbs book is a very enjoyable and interesting addition to this series. Very good characters, interesting location and, as always, some good emotional twists and turns.

. . . OR, a culling of different points of view ?

Don't you sometimes wonder what book reviews should be? Reader response to Jacqueline Winspear's fine novel "An Incomplete Revenge" has inspired these thoughts:

1. Pare down your synopsis (of plot & characters). They have been covered quite deftly by Publisher's Weekly & top reviewers. If your review contains more words than the book itself I will find an abbreviated version that suits my needs. (You can't believe how STINGY with TIME you become when you are among the Aged!)

2. DOWSING has located sources of water for ten houses in our area, Prof. Calvin. Therefore, I am a True Believer. (I am sure you don't need to 'google' the subject but some other readers might benefit)? You doubtless know that in the backwoods we call it well-witching.

3. Consider whether your review will add real substance for on-line readers to mull over - - or whether you are perhaps satisfying your own ego? Julia M., isn't writing for amazon.com the ultimate in 'vanity press'? After reading your response & those by several others I can do some weighing & come up with my own smattering of opinion.

4. SAVE repetition for conversations with the hard-of-hearing, YES, but scatter (especially foreign) words to good effect - possibly drawing readers to more open attitudes about language. Our eyes are practiced at playing leapfrog with words on the printed page and don't you do some skimming yourself?

5. Coincidences are to be cherished!

6. BE OBJECTIVE (as I am not). Now that you have scanned a few of my cherished prejudices I suggest that others NOT make the same mistake.

Jacqueline Winspear pleases many readers and has developed Maisie as a most fetching character. It is especially interesting to learn of the detective's Roma ancestry. I have in the past wondered about the gypsies in Britain and the author has blended a great amount of information with an engaging story of losses and gains. The well-drawn personalities are a bonus, as always. James Compton is a lucky employer and he may even be found helping Maisie weather some of the future changes that are hinted.

Jacqueline Winspear's portrayal of an unusually complicated woman was the best yet of any of the Masie Dobbs mysteries. taking place in post war England. Maisie is caught up in a mystery surrounding a country village, and what seemed like planned arson.

The complexity of Winspear's characters provided a many-faceted tale of suspence. Maisie's asistant, a war vereran and young father who was shattered both physically and mentally was hired by Maisie, and proved his worth in many instances.

Maisie grew up motherless, became a nurse, and with a knowledge of human nature gleaned from her service, along with a natural curiosity, became a detective with the tutelage of her mentor.

Each one of the Maisie Dobbs stories stands on its own but I have benefitted by beginning from the first of its series and reading each of the books from the first to the last.

I haven't overlooked the historical value of all her books, which is one of their most interesting aspects.

"An Incomplete Revenge" is an old-fashioned book reminiscent of very early Agatha Christie--there are lots of coincidences, a complicated plot with a gather-them-altogether ending, and rather stereotypical characters. And in spite of all that, the novel does have, like Christie's, a certain narrative power.

The book is centered on two puzzles: Maisie must find out who is behind the thefts at the manor house of an estate which her friend James wishes to buy, and she must determine who is causing the annual fires in the village where the estate is located. The novel is certainly not a mystery--the identity and rationale of the first criminal is obvious from the first. The "twist," the solution of the second problem, is also not very difficult to anticipate. Whether the reader enjoys the book hinges on what we make of the heroine and her dealings with the other characters and the atmosphere the author establishes.

Maisie is still too much of a superwoman for me--she rarely puts a foot wrong. Her reaction to a grave personal loss which she experiences lacks conviction, though some of the individual scenes concerning it are poignant and moving. I have come to dislike her bossy friend Priscilla, and wonder that Maisie is able to tolerate her. The conversations Maisie has with Maurice Blanche, her mentor, are full of pretension and fraudulent psychology; I haven't missed them.

Which brings us to the Rom, the "gypsies." The Rom customarily assist at the hop-picking which forms such an interesting background to this book. Other Londoners habitually travel to Kent at this time to pick as well, and a good deal of the novel focuses on the prejudices between these two groups, as well as the hostility between the inhabitants of the village near the hop gardens toward both parties, and vice versa. Ironically, though Winspear tries to teach us (clumsily) about the life of the Rom, and the unfairness with which they are treated, she reinforces some of these prejudices by focusing on using their reputation for "second sight" and other "magical" powers. (Maisie, who shares in these mystic powers by virtue of her Romany grandmother, uses dowsing to make a discover central to part of the case's solution.) What are we left thinking about this long-persecuted group?

Winspear's setting, the village in which the hop-picking is carried out, and the hop-picking customs were really interesting and well thought out. This part of her writing is what makes the book worth reading. A vanished world is re-established for our pleasure.

If you are a Maisie fan you will find all the usual entertainments in "An Incomplete Revenge" in addition to further developments in her personal life. If you aren't particularly a fan, you may well enjoy the picture of post-World-War-I life sufficiently to overlook some of the book's flaws.

More than a mystery, more than a history - Winspear has created the essence of an era and of human interpersonal relationships in a changing world. All this comes in the every day experiences of a charming, intelligent young woman called Maisie Dobbs.

EWG