Another fine addition to the Maisie Dobbs series demonstrates that when the going gets tough, the tough women get to flying. British pilots are in short supply during WW2, and in October 1942, Jo Hardy, an ATA ferry pilot, is transporting a Spitfire from the factory to the coastal Biggin Hill Aerodrome. As she skims the treetops she sees a man pointing A SUNLIT WEAPON and he shoots at the plane.
The roles women filled during the war included many service roles supporting the armed forces, and anyone who had trained in flying before the war was in demand. So when another lady pilot crashes on the same route across Kent, Jo decides to engage an investigator.
American servicemen are at the core of this mystery, as investigator Maisie Dobbs discovers. She divides her time between her London office, where her husband from her recent marriage, American embassy staffer Mark, also works. They have an adopted daughter, Anna, who is at school near their Kentish home. Maisie is trying to be a good wife and mother, but this does involve domestic staff. She does a fair bit of gadding about the country in her car, for all petrol is rationed, and I didn’t notice her doing any war work, like knitting, or ferrying old books to depots so the paper can be re-used. On the other hand, her investigations are serious and pertain to the conflict, so she gets a pass from the boys at Scotland Yard and Whitehall, who occasionally ask her to do some filing, which was the lot of most women.
The tramping around and asking questions of locals, Land Girls, servicemen, and spooks, is detailed and steady, covering a lot of muddy ground and unkempt hedgerows. Barns were tumbledown because able-bodied men were in short supply between the wars, and the new generation had to enlist. Maisie also shows us London’s bomb sites--long queues for food and ration cards for foreign dignitaries. Reading one of Jacqueline Winspear’s mysteries is always immersive, as she has researched so well by asking relatives and friends what their lives were like. A SUNLIT WEAPON takes a step further, though, by showing us the American troops in Britain. They were working, socialising, even dating, with military police intent on reinforcing segregation--which astounded the native British. The Maisie Dobbs books are best read in order but can stand well alone. By investigating a woman pilot’s death, Maisie lays bare secrets and plots at the highest level. A SUNLIT WEAPON is a cracking read.
In the latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series, a series of possible attacks on British pilots leads Jacqueline Winspear's beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs into a mystery involving First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
October 1942. 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. Meanwhile, Maisie’s husband, a high-ranking political attaché based at the American embassy, is in the thick of ensuring security is tight for the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, during her visit to the Britain. There’s already evidence that German agents have been circling: the wife of a president represents a high value target. Mrs. Roosevelt is clearly in danger, and there may well be a direct connection to the death of the woman ferry pilot and the recent activities of two American servicemen.
To guarantee the safety of the First Lady—and of the soldier being held in police custody—Maisie must uncover that connection. At the same time, she faces difficulties of an entirely different nature with her young daughter, Anna, who is experiencing wartime struggles of her own.
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