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Jacqueline Winspear

Biography

Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR, THE AMERICAN AGENT and TO DIE BUT ONCE, as well as 14 other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels, and THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF LIES, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books: WHAT WOULD MAISIE DO? and a memoir, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE'LL BE LAUGHING. Originally from the United Kingdom, she divides her time between California and the Pacific Northwest.

Books by Jacqueline Winspear

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor White finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in post-WWII London, ultimately exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government. “Miss White," as Elinor is known, lives in a village in rural Kent, England, and to her fellow villagers seems something of an enigma. It will take Susie, the child of a young farmworker, Jim Mackie and his wife, Rose, to break through Miss White's icy demeanor. When the powerful Mackie crime family demands a return of their prodigal son for an important job, Elinor assumes the task of protecting her neighbors. Yet in her quest to uncover the truth behind the family’s pursuit of Jim, Elinor unwittingly sets out on a treacherous path.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Jo Hardy, a 22-year-old ferry pilot, is delivering a Supermarine Spitfire --- the fastest fighter aircraft in the world --- to Biggin Hill Aerodrome, when she realizes someone is shooting at her aircraft from the ground. Returning to the location on foot, she finds an American serviceman in a barn, bound and gagged. She rescues the man, who is handed over to the American military police; it quickly emerges that he is considered a suspect in the disappearance of a fellow soldier who is missing. Tragedy strikes two days later, when another ferry pilot crashes in the same area where Jo’s plane was attacked. At the suggestion of one of her colleagues, Jo seeks the help of psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. When he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer. Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie wants to help the boy, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill --- reasons that go back to the last war.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Memoir, Nonfiction

After 16 novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her story tackles the difficult, poignant and fascinating family accounts of her paternal grandfather’s shellshock; her mother’s evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father’s torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents’ years living with Romany Gypsies; and Winspear’s own childhood picking hops and fruit on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, Robert MacFarlane pays a visit to Maisie Dobbs. He is accompanied by Mark Scott, an agent from the US Department of Justice who helped Maisie escape Hitler’s Munich in 1938. MacFarlane asks Maisie to work with Scott to uncover the truth about Saxon’s death. As the Germans unleash the full terror of their blitzkrieg upon the British Isles, Maisie must balance the demands of solving this dangerous case with her need to protect Anna, the young evacuee she has grown to love and wants to adopt.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

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, 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. 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.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

At the moment Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts to the nation Britain’s declaration of war with Germany, a senior Secret Service agent breaks into Maisie Dobbs' flat to await her return. Dr. Francesca Thomas has an urgent assignment for Maisie: to find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some 23 years earlier during the Great War. In a London shadowed by barrage balloons, bomb shelters and the threat of invasion, within days another former Belgian refugee is found murdered. As Maisie’s search for the killer escalates, the country braces for what is to come. Britain is approaching its gravest hour --- and Maisie could be nearing a crossroads of her own.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

The German government has agreed to release a British subject from prison, but only if he is handed over to a family member. Because the man’s wife is bedridden and his daughter has been killed in an accident, the Secret Service wants Maisie Dobbs --- who bears a striking resemblance to the daughter --- to retrieve the man from Dachau. Traveling into the heart of Nazi Germany, Maisie encounters unexpected dangers --- and finds herself questioning whether it’s time to return to the work she loved. But the Secret Service may have other ideas.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

On a ship bound for England to visit her aging father after her stepmother summons her home, Maisie Dobbs realizes she isn’t ready to return. Against the wishes of the captain, who warns her, “You will be alone in a most dangerous place,” she disembarks in Gibraltar. Days after her arrival, a photographer and member of Gibraltar’s Sephardic Jewish community is murdered, and Maisie becomes entangled in the case and renews an uneasy acquaintance in the process.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

On the eve of World War I, a rift develops between best friends Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden as Kezia marries Tom, Thea's brother. Thea, scornful of Kezia's future as a farmer's wife, turns to political causes that transform her into a hunted outlaw. When Tom and Thea head off to the battlefields and Kezia takes over the farm, all three are challenged and changed.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

A young Indian woman has been shot, and the redoubtable Maisie Dobbs is on the case. In Jacqueline Winspear’s 10th historical mystery, the victim is an emigrant torn between two worlds, and she echoes the perplexing choice facing Maisie herself: settle down with a good man, or seek her destiny in a quest far from home.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet: a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power.

by Jacqueline Winspear - Fiction, Mystery

In the summer of 1932, the career of psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment from the British Secret Service.

written by Jacqueline Winspear, read by Orlagh Cassidy - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

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.