To Die but Once (Mother's Day Signed Edition) (Maisie Dobbs Series #14)

by Jacqueline Winspear

Overview

Maisie Dobbs—one of the most complex and admirable characters in contemporary fiction (Richmond Times Dispatch)—faces danger and intrigue on the home front during World War II.

During the months following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, Maisie Dobbs investigates the disappearance of a young apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract. As news of the plight of thousands of soldiers stranded on the beaches of France is gradually revealed to the general public, and the threat of invasion rises, another young man beloved by Maisie makes a terrible decision that will change his life forever.

Maisie’s investigation leads her from the countryside of rural Hampshire to the web of wartime opportunism exploited by one of the London underworld’s most powerful men, in a case that serves as a reminder of the inextricable link between money and war. Yet when a final confrontation approaches, she must acknowledge the potential cost to her future—and the risk of destroying a dream she wants very much to become reality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062862464
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/27/2018
Series:	Maisie Dobbs Series
Edition description:	Signed Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 17.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestselling Maisie Dobbs series, which includes In This Grave Hour, Journey to Munich, A Dangerous Place, Leaving Everything Most Loved, Elegy for Eddie, and eight other novels. Her standalone novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was also a New York Times bestseller and a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Originally from the United Kingdom, she now lives in California.

Hometown:

Ojai, California

Date of Birth:

April 30, 1955

Place of Birth:

Weald of Kent, England

Education:

The University of London¿s Institute of Education

Website:

http://www.jacquelinewinspear.com

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2018
The possible disappearance of a teenage boy drives bestseller Winspear’s so-so novel set in 1940 Britain, her 14th featuring London investigator and psychologist Maisie Dobbs (after 2017’s In This Grave Hour). Before the war, 15-year-old Joe Coombes worked as an apprentice for a painting and decorating company that the British government retained to paint RAF facilities with a new kind of fire-retardant. When Joe’s family doesn’t hear from him for several days, his father, publican Phil Coombes, asks Maisie to trace the boy. His son seemed different during their last visits, Phil tells her. Maisie soon learns that Joe took a fatal fall onto a railway track, but the reader already knows, via the prologue, that he was bludgeoned to death. The whodunit story line is often secondary to the larger historical picture—in particular, the British response to the retreat from Dunkirk and the threat of German invasion—and to developments in Maisie’s private life. A gratuitous closing contrivance doesn’t help. Still, Winspear fans will find much to like. Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Maisie Dobbs has found herself another war…. Sizzling.

Marilyn Stasio

In Winspear’s skilled hands, the storyline shimmers with intelligence, the Third Reich setting simmers with evil, and the author’s silken prose sweeps the reader from page to page. But towering above all the novel’s assets is Maisie herself…. ‘Journey to Munich’ soars with class and courage, heart and humanity.

Richmond Times-Dispatch on Journey to Munich

Paints a keen picture of a woman and a country struggling to remain calm in the face of sweeping changes.... Deftly blending historical detail with taut suspense and her usual thoughtful exploration of Maisie’s inner life, Winspear turns in another satisfying entry in her beloved series.

Shelf Awareness on Journey to Munich

2017-12-24
Britain teeters on the brink as World War II ramps up.In May 1940, Maisie Dobbs—nurse, spy, psychologist, and enquiry agent—is caught up in the strange death of a local lad. Maisie's life has been fraught with difficulty since the death of her husband in a plane crash and her subsequent miscarriage. She's compensated for her anguish by plenty of daring deeds, including working as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War and as a spy in Hitler's Germany. Just as she's seeking to adopt Anna (In This Grave Hour, 2017, etc.), a refugee child living in her home in Kent, Maisie's approached by local publican Phil Coombes, who's desperately worried about his son Joe. Although only 15, he's apprenticed to Yates and Sons, painters and decorators, and has been traveling the country applying a fire-retardant paint to air-base buildings. The paint has apparently given him massive headaches, and now he's vanished. Maisie, who still has enough gas coupons to run her car, agrees to try tracking him down while her assistant, Billy Beale, checks out Yates. When Joe is found dead on the railroad tracks, the police think he probably jumped, but Maisie is suspicious even before the coroner finds a strange lesion in his brain. In truth, there's something a bit off about the whole Coombes family. Their standard of living is a cut above what Maisie would expect their pub to provide. And when she discovers that Mrs. Coombes is the sister of a well-known and dangerous criminal, she becomes convinced that the government paint contract involves a nasty scam and uses all her contacts to search for the truth. Her life is made even more stressful when her godson and a friend steal off to Dunkirk to help rescue the desperate remnants of the British army trapped between the advancing Germans and the English Channel.In addition to providing a very good mystery, Winspear does a smashing job describing the bravery exhibited by everyday Britons as the fear of invasion becomes ever more real.

Kirkus Review