by Jacqueline Winspear
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| Sales Rank: | 77121 (lower is better) |
| Price Used: | $5.90 |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
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| Pages: | 352 |
| Binding: | Hardcover |
| Publication Date: | 2005-08-10 |
| ASIN: | B000GQLCVO |
| Category: | Book |
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Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Product Description
In the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful WWI memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot’s death
Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe. Every once in a while, a detective bursts on the scene who captures readers’ hearts—and imaginations—and doesn’t let go. And so it was with Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, who made her debut just two years ago in the eponymously titled first book of the series, and is already on her way to becoming a household name.
A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world.
In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war—one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton.
Following on the heels of the triumphant Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies is the most compelling installment yet in the chronicles of Maisie Dobbs, “a heroine to cherish” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review).
As the Hippocratic Oath of physicians says, "Do no harm." - Reviewed on 2008-08-18
Pardonable Lies is one of the Maise Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear, and the third I've read. The lady has a remarkable ability to put across the period of World War I and its aftermath for a reader and has inspired me to actually find out more about the history of that era, one I thought of as "boring" before reading these novels.
Ms Winspear has a remarkable understanding of people and their motives, and it becomes clearer with each book I read. Certainly her account of individuals recovering from their traumatic experiences during the war was very sensitive and realistic. Here the very fact that so much of what happens to people in war is undisclosed, even after the war and often to the detriment of many families, is very evident and probably still goes on in our own times. The fact that some things are best left unsaid for the well-being of those involved is also provocative. (As the Hippocratic Oath of physicians says, "Do no harm.")
The book is extremely well plotted, with no loose ends, despite being fairly complicated and multilayered in its design, something I find remarkable.
Not my cup of tea - Reviewed on 2007-12-13
2 customers found this review helpful.
In all fairness, I must preface this review by saying that I am not the ideal reader for this book. _Pardonable Lies_ asks the reader to assume a belief in spirit guides, mediumism, Fate, karma, capital-I Intuition, chakras, psychic powers, and such mystical elements. If that fits your worldview, stop reading; this review will only make you angry.
Still here? OK, I proclaim it: I am a rationalist, and I like detective stories in part because they're explicitly rational. And yet ... in the past, I've been happy to swallow less likely conceits than the above, all in the name of a good yarn. The problem with _Pardonable Lies_ is not just that it embraces a mystical worldview; Jacqueline Winspear applies that same fuzzy-thinking harmony-with-the-cosmic-all to the actual plot and structure of the book. With predictable results.
In fact, this is not really a mystery novel; it's a more of a gothic potboiler. _Pardonable Lies_ contains numerous features of the latter genre, such as:
* A brooding, ominous, emotionally charged atmosphere
* A secret passage
* A mysterious stranger who shadows the protagonist
* Lurking psychic and supernatural elements
* Guilty secrets and forbidden love that haunt the characters' pasts
What it doesn't have is any actual mystery. Here, according to this book, is how a "detective" "solves" a case:
1. Go on vacation to visit an old friend.
2. Walk past a bunch of random photographs in the old friend's house.
3. When you feel a mysterious intuitional pull, stop. The nearest photograph will explain all.
Yes! It's detection by Spider-Sense!
This is entirely typical of the plotting of _Pardonable Lies_. Maisie Dobbs just has to wander around. Strangers come up to her and explain their secrets. Vital evidence appears, almost magically, wherever she goes. Massive coincidences detonate all around her. A top intelligence official pours out secret information to her, for no evident reason ... and Maisie gets angry at him for not having done it sooner! (To be fair, the information is neither surprising nor relevant by that point in the story.) And the climax--arranged by another enormous coincidence--comes from so far out in left field that you couldn't see it with anything short of the Hubble Telescope.
In short, Maisie Dobbs
*DOES*
*NOT*
*EVER*
*HAVE*
*TO*
*THINK*
in the course of the book. (The closest she gets is using her nursing skill, in a trivial fashion, to resolve a dangling subplot.)
It would appear that Jacqueline Winspear did this knowingly and deliberately. For instance, there's good deal of interior monologue about the Mysterious Powers of Fate and how There Are Really No Coincidences and that Certain Things Are Meant to Be and ... you get the idea. If Danielle Steel had written an _X-Files_ episode, this would be the result.
It would be unjust of me not to stipulate that the book has its good points. Although it's not vividly described, the inter-war setting is used effectively to set the book's mood and theme. Even though I didn't care for the actual plot developments, the pacing was good--neither too abrupt nor too slow. Maisie herself is a pretty good character, and her struggle with what we'd now call post-traumatic stress is very well developed. The tone is serious, bordering on somber--I don't think there's a single moment of real humor in the whole thing--which may not be your cup of tea, but which is effectively maintained.
Nonetheless, _Pardonable Lies_ is a mystery only in the very loosest sense, in that facts not known at the book's start are known at its end. The process of getting from one to the other, however, is explicitly anti-rationalistic and frankly mystical. To put Winspear in the same genre as such authors as Aaron Elkins and Steve Hockensmith is misleading. To compare her (as the cover blurb does) to Christie and Sayers is just plain silly. If you like the "romantic suspense" category, you might like _Pardonable Lies_; if you're a stickler for the true mystery, I'd recommend you look elsewhere.
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