An Incomplete Revenge, by Jacqueline Winspear

An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


     Although it's the fifth book in the series, this is my sixth Maisie Dobbs mystery, because the first I read was The Mapping of Love and Death, Maisie Dobbs #7. I would strongly suggest others not do that! I didn't think it would matter; I thought it was more like a Miss Marple/Hercule Poirot kind of series, but Jacqueline Winspear's books involve a lot of personal events in Maisie's life, and you don't want to get them out of order. That said, right now I'm quite glad I did read a later book already, because I know I liked that Maisie, and this one I found a little annoying. At least I know it's not going to be an ongoing feeling!
     For most of the previous books, I really enjoyed Maisie and the mysteries with which she was tasked. The best were probably books one and two (Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather, respectively); the worst, number three (Pardonable Lies). After reading the fourth Maisie Dobbs adventure, Messenger of Truth, I decided the series was really so good I had to take a break before reading more. If I kept on, I'd quickly run out and be one of the fans waiting patiently for the next to be written. So it's been about a year and a half since I read any Maisie Dobbs at all.
     As I rejoined Maisie's life, I was glad to see her trying new and unusual activities, like weaving. I'd hoped that her experiences in Messenger of Truth would lead to that. But I was also disappointed to see that in her business and social life, she remains extremely uptight, very distant from most people, overly proper, and almost OCD in her fastidious attitude toward everything. I can see how, given her station and the era, she feels the constraints of propriety. But can't she pull away from that, in her mind if nowhere else? She seems so priggish and stiff. Yes, I know she does her detective work and climbs fences, but she's always itemizing her time and ticking off this segment of day and that; and worse, holding herself apart from many emotional situations as they are happening---though occasionally she later feels and connects to them in some way. But it's always in private, or very rarely, with just her father or Maurice.
     Maisie remarks in this novel that she's been trying to widen her circle of friends, if only to protect herself from losing most she has to time and age. But she has to realize you don't make true, lasting friends by keeping yourself apart from people, or even simply by sharing Eccles cakes and tea with someone, like she does Beattie Drummond. I imagine this is going to develop into a closer friendship, but right now there's nothing real there between them, just gossip about the case. Maisie's only real friend is Priscilla, and it took the Great War to bind them. I was truly sad to see that Maisie was so hung up on why ever she feels she must constantly restrain herself that she regretted showing emotion when talking to Priscilla (p.30-31). With whom can you share your real feelings and passion if not with your closest friends? Seeing Maisie as someone so closed off and unable to show any of her true self makes me feel like something's wrong with her. While I like peculiar detectives, I don't really feel comfortable with protagonists who are irredeemably emotionally handicapped. So I'm hoping that changes, the quicker the better---maybe that's what this book was steering toward, though it was slightly oblique. Certainly Maisie's episode of dancing showed something loosening within her. At the same time, it exemplified her issues, because she struggled with it so much, and saw it as such a wild option it was almost embarrassing for a reader (as in, you feel what's wrong with her? Everyone else is dancing, and no one there would judge her. Why can't she just be normal?)
     There were several parts of the novel that veered into extreme areas of Maisie's personal life. Those parts, as well as the more touching aspects of the case, brought me to teary eyes several times. So in spite of her distance from others, you still connect to Maisie and her experiences. But for the most part, Maisie's detective work felt rather rote and Nancy Drewish. I don't have a problem with Nancy Drew, and set against a historically accurate setting, it's all the better. But there has been more sophisticated craft in other Maisie Dobbs adventures. There was also a slow start here, and some tortuous writing (perhaps the fault of an editor): "Frankie Dobbs had told of the jokes shared while picking and laughed when recounting the way opinions on the way of the world were exchanged or a jocular back-and-forth interrupted when a wail signaling that a small child---put down to nap on a coat draped across a pile of old hop-bines---had woken from sleep." (p.38) And breathe. Now untangle what you just read.
     Several areas of the mystery disappointed me, but perhaps that's more a result of my views on human nature. I found some aspects of the history hard to accept, but I suppose it could have happened that way. It also could have happened the milder way I imagined the truth of the story before the truth was revealed. Frankly, I was shocked that Maisie took the selected truth in stride the way she did. Maybe that's just another sign of her emotional frigidity. (view spoiler)[I was also very confused that Maisie chose not to tell Webb or anyone else the real father of Anna's unborn child was Henry Sandermere rather than Alfred. She claims, "such knowledge would have brought nothing but added distress to a man who had lost so much," (p.274) but how is that the case? His sister and her child are gone no matter what, and it would distress me far more to think my sister slept with and was pregnant by the man who incited a mob to murder my family than it would to know she had an affair with his well-liked, valiant older brother. (hide spoiler)]
     The hop-picking setting, while enthralling at first, got a little repetitive in its descriptions of scent. I would have preferred more descriptions of the visuals of the Kent countryside than of just so many fragrances---or rather, so many similar descriptions of the same scent. More vivid visual descriptions together with the olfactory would have been best. The gypsy facet was a surprise, and though I found it an odd choice, (view spoiler)[especially as the way to explain Maisie's natural intuition, (hide spoiler)] it could have been delved into more deeply. It almost felt like a means to an end rather than an involving feature. I'd say the book also suffered for the fact that Billy Beale spent a lot of time out of the picture, hop picking with his family. If he ever does end up emigrating to Canada, I'll miss his presence in Maisie's cases. Priscilla, as ever, was a welcome breeze of vivacious energy and vivid reality in Maisie's stony brown routine. I could do with a whole book of Priscilla.
     Altogether, An Incomplete Revenge is a satisfactory addition to the ongoing Maisie Dobbs story, and handles the difficult task of engaging the reader in both the mystery and what might otherwise have been the story-stealing weighty events in Maisie's personal life. The two elements blend together rather well, if a little obviously sometimes. Three stars out of five for a leading romp through a hidden history in the country and solid developments in Maisie's own story.



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