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frostbitsky's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
This has been in my Audible library since August 2018. It must have been a free giveaway because I didn't pay anything extra for it.
This was such a sad story about WW I veterans, their physical and mental trauma, and their families' grief. As sad as it was, it was good to see a story that addressed those topics. Especially about WW I which is often overlooked by WW II.
The mystery was easy to figure out and solve.A cult taking veterans' money and then they live at a retreat. But if they leave they are considered deserters and are hanged or drowned.
If this book were only about Maisie Dobbs's first P.I. case it would have been a shorter book, but a big chunk of the middle is dedicated to Maisie's backstory.
The part about her childhood and education dragged and I did get bored, but it all ties together at the end.
The prose is beautiful. I wrote down some quotes.
- Memory is a golden chain that binds us till we meet again. (Donald Holden's gravestone.)
- "Never follow a story with a question, Maisie. Not immediately. And remember to acknowledge the storyteller, for in some way even the messenger is effected by the story he brings."
- A grand house that was now a home for the men stranded in time by the Great War. Men trapped in the caverns of their own minds. Never to return.
- "It was as if the memory of you, of us, of the explosion, were encased in fine tissue paper."
- With their damaged faces once so very dear to a mother, father, or sweetheart, they were now reduced to gargoyles by a war that for them never ended.
Overall, good female detective story. I am not hooked enough to continue the series.
3 out of 5 Retreats
This was such a sad story about WW I veterans, their physical and mental trauma, and their families' grief. As sad as it was, it was good to see a story that addressed those topics. Especially about WW I which is often overlooked by WW II.
The mystery was easy to figure out and solve.
If this book were only about Maisie Dobbs's first P.I. case it would have been a shorter book, but a big chunk of the middle is dedicated to Maisie's backstory.
The part about her childhood and education dragged and I did get bored, but it all ties together at the end.
The prose is beautiful. I wrote down some quotes.
- Memory is a golden chain that binds us till we meet again. (Donald Holden's gravestone.)
- "Never follow a story with a question, Maisie. Not immediately. And remember to acknowledge the storyteller, for in some way even the messenger is effected by the story he brings."
- A grand house that was now a home for the men stranded in time by the Great War. Men trapped in the caverns of their own minds. Never to return.
- "It was as if the memory of you, of us, of the explosion, were encased in fine tissue paper."
- With their damaged faces once so very dear to a mother, father, or sweetheart, they were now reduced to gargoyles by a war that for them never ended.
Overall, good female detective story. I am not hooked enough to continue the series.
3 out of 5 Retreats
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail