“Messenger of Truth” by Jacqueline Winspear – No Accidents in Crime

Looking back on our entire history as a whole, I think it's safe to say artists have often had it pretty rough, and not only in terms of their ability to make money.

Time and time again across continents, artists have drawn the ire of the poor and wealthy alike for the expression of their ideas and observations, often a little too close to the truth for comfort.

In the fourth entry in the Maisie Dobbs Mystery Series by Jacqueline Winspear, titled Messenger of Truth, we take a good long look at such an artist, or more precisely, the strange death which befell him. Before moving on, each novel in this series works very much as a standalone offering, and you don't need to be acquainted with any previous works to understand or enjoy this one.

In any case, the novel takes us to London in 1931, the short and fickle period between the two World Wars, where the controversial artist Nick Bassington falls to his death on the eve of an exhibition centred on his artwork. The police, as is tradition, are quick to rule it a suicide, but Nick's twin sister Georgina is far from convinced.

Turning to her old fellow graduate from Girton College, Maisie Dobbs the psychologist and private investigator herself, Georgina asks her to look into the case. It doesn't take long at all for it to become apparent they're about to embark on a long and complicated mystery, one which promises to take them back to the ravaged beaches of the First World War.

However, the figures responsible for Nick's death are lurking in the shadows, never far behind, and are more than willing to send Maisie right after him. With the mystery proving increasingly complex and challenging with every new clue and deduction made, Maisie finds herself racing against both the clock and the very real forces of evil in search of the one elusive truth.

The Intellectual Challenge in Messenger of Truth

If we're looking at the types of murder mysteries which have come in recent years, most of them seem to be more focused on cheap thrills and fast-paced action, rather than the actual mysteries behind the murder. The reason for it, in my opinion, is quite simple: it's hard to write a good, solid, challenging and coherent murder mystery.

However, Jacqueline Winspear definitely stands her own ground far apart from many of her peers, and this is quite likely the aspect which I enjoy the most about this book, and the Maisie Dobbs Mystery Series in general. The murder mystery presents an intellectual challenge, one we solve alongside Maisie using nothing but our brains.

All the gratuitous violence, deprived of even shock value at this stage, we've gotten used to seeing in modern literature is very largely absent here. There are definitely some unsettling moments and passages, but they don't go overboard and are thematically anchored by the First World War, which no matter how you put it, was a senselessly gruesome affair which shouldn't be played down.

The actual mystery itself – if you enjoy solving it along the protagonist as I do – does require you to pay close attention to the smallest details and how they all correlate with each other.

As has always been the case with this series, the mystery is solid, coherent, challenging, and airtight, to the point where there is absolutely no shame in failing to figure it out before the end.

Additionally, I feel like I need to clarify something: the lack of action and violence don't make the pace suffer in any way whatsoever. Pieces of information and discoveries are constantly leading to new and interesting developments, to the point where we barely get to make a pit stop to appreciate the scenery.

Life After the War

With the plot being so fast-paced and in consistent movement, I think it becomes a little easy to get lost in the mystery and overlook some of the additional aspects the novel has to offer. While we're undertaking a murder investigation, we're also taken on a profound excursion of Depression-era London, the very curious and often-forgotten period between the two World Wars.

Through Maisie's interactions with the world, we get to see and feel how such a massive conflict affected the regular people at the other end of it, and how in turn their mentality affected the development of the country.

Jacqueline Winspear's world-building capabilities are simply second to none; she doesn't need to delve into long expository paragraphs to explain anything, rather showing it poignant and concise matters without ever taking her eyes off the plot.

We get to really see and feel the desperation reigning over a country with rampant unemployment and seemingly few prospects for the future, with imagery I can safely say I won't soon forget.

Still relevant to the state of the world today, the class division between the rich and the poor figures quite prominently throughout the story, and Winspear makes an absolutely fantastic demonstration of how circumstances and uncontrollable opportunities play a large part in dictating our lot in life. Though the poor and wealthy might seem like they are worlds apart, they are in fact merely two sides of the human coin.

The Final Verdict

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear is yet another strong and memorable entry in the Maisie Dobbs Mystery Series, offering an intelligent and complex murder mystery set in a richly-detailed and well-examined post-WWI London society.

If you enjoy private investigator murder mysteries set in the first half of the twentieth century which call for the use of brains rather than brawn, then I have no doubt you'll love this book, and probably the series in general.

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Jacqueline Winspear Personal site Jacqueline Winspear is a mystery author hailing from the United Kingdom, best-known for writing the Maisie Dobbs Series, taking place after WWI and following the titular inspector's investigations across over fourteen books at this point. The first novel in the series, Maisie Dobbs, earned her numerous award nominations, Such as the Edgar Award for Best Novel and the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Additionally, she was also a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2015.