In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear

Winspear keeps Maisie into the time frame so well. People are sending their children out of London and into the countryside in case London is bombed. Maisie has also taken in some children into the Dowager house and her father and Brenda are taking care of them. Then three more murders occur of people Maisie has spoken to during the investigation. Francesca Thomas of the Belgium Embassy and secret service has hired Maisie to solve a murder of a Belgium refugee from WWI. World War II has started and for all the veterans of WWI and their families it is a difficult time. It is great to have Maisie, Sandra and Billie back in the old office working on investigations again. But then as a narrator, in my opinion Katherine Kellgren is quite simply the very best. Of all of the American narrators who narrate British novels using British accents, Cassidy is second only to the great Katherine Kellgren. Orlagh Cassidy narrates wonderfully as usual. But WW II is just starting for Great Britain, so one must expect that both Maisie and Billy will find a way to participate in the next novel in the series. Her dad and step-mom play major roles in the book. This novel, #13, finds Maisie back in her detective bureau with Billy solving murder mysteries.

Novels 9 - 12 in the series were not light and fun. Then Maisie started to wander and take serious risks including becoming a nurse in the Spanish civil war before moving to Hitler's Germany getting into trouble there for a year. Then Maisie and her husband moved to the US and tragedy struck when she lost her husband in an accident and then her child at her birth. The first 8 novels in the series were light and fun murder mysteries. In This Grave Hour is Novel 13 in the Maisie Dodds series. I must admit addiction to the wonderful British historical mysteries such as this Maisie Dobbs series and Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness series as well as her Molly Murphy series.

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear