First book in the Maisie Dobbs series, published in 2003. Jacqueline Winspear was born in the county of Kent, England. She was educated at the University of London's Institute of Education. After graduation, she worked in academic publishing, in higher education, and in marketing communications in the UK. In 1990, she emigrated to the United States. She was working in business and as a personal/professional coach when she decided to try writing. Her first novel, Maisie Dobbs, won the Agatha Award for Best First novel, the Macavity Award for Best First Novel, and the Alex Award. She is the author of the Maisie Dobbs Mystery series. She has also won the Agatha Award for Best Novel, the inaugural Sue Feder/Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery, and the Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery. Her title, A Dangerous Place, made The New York Times High Profile titles list. Journey to Munich, a book in the Maisie Dobbs Series, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2016. Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan's friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts and helped her earn admission to the prestigious Girton College in Cambridge, where Maisie planned to complete her education. The outbreak of war changed everything. Maisie trained as a nurse, then left for France to serve at the Front, where she found—and lost—an important part of herself. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive. Her very first case involves suspected infidelity but reveals something very different. In the aftermath of the Great War, a former officer has founded a working farm known as The Retreat, that acts as a convalescent refuge for ex-soldiers too shattered to resume normal life. When Fate brings Maisie a second case involving The Retreat, she must finally confront the ghost that has haunted her for over a decade.

ISBN: 9781616954079