Book #45: Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

This is the fourth book in the Maisie Dobbs series. For some reason, I'd thought that I missed the third one and that I was reading them out of order, but turns out this was the right one for me to read anyways. I checked out four of the Maisie Dobbs books from the library to read while we were at Aspen Grove (since I knew I was going to be unable to do most of the active activities), but I didn't even pull one of them out the whole time I was there! I was busy bonding with family and doing other fun things. So I read this right when I got back and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Maisie Dobbs is a great character--she's a very motivated, strong career woman. I expect her to be closer to my age--mid- to late-twenties--but she is really in her mid-thirties because of all of her experiences during WWI. I am a little bit bugged by how Maisie always seems to be perfectly in control and never unsure of herself, even when being pressured by the forceful male detectives of the day, for example. Even in the first book, during her first mystery, when she had little experience and little work, she was always able to squash the guys who came after her trying to pressure her into doing things they wanted her to. And how realistic is that? Maybe that's just me, because I don't think I'd be able to be perfectly on my game, 100% of the time, like Maisie is.

Also, I think it's interesting how Winspear has Maisie break up with her current boyfriend because she doesn't want to give up her work. She understands that if she gets married, her husband would eventually expect her to play the role of the doctor's wife and she doesn't think she can do that. I think it's great for Maisie to be so self-aware of what she thinks she can and cannot do, personally. But it's also a little sad to me that she doesn't even allow herself to become invested in relationships with people because she's so career-driven. Like I said, she's getting older and all the people she's close to are in their seventies (her father and her mentors)--soon, she's going to be all alone. It's sad that she feels like her work and a marriage are incompatible, because nowadays that's not the case. I hope she can figure that out and make things work with SOMEBODY eventually.