Review: Elegy for Eddie

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maisie is approached by several costers from her old home in Lambeth, anxious to get to the bottom of the death of a well-love but differently able man called Eddie. The case strikes close to home as Maisie remembers Eddie well, a man with a child's intellect but a savant when it comes to treating horses. As Maisie begins her investigation she discovers that Eddie's death may be linked to several other 'accidents'/ 'suicides' and behind it all may be something of grave national importance.

Possibly the least engaging of the Maisie Dobbs books to date, feels like treading water and re-opening closed books. Having dangled Sutton and MacFarlane as potential love interests in previous books we were settled on James, now it appears that is all up in the air for a host of reasons.

As prescient minds prepare for the inevitable WW2, Maisie must come to terms with her own faults and foibles, and an investigation that puts Billy in the hospital and may estrange her from the family.

Obviously I'm reading these books back-to-back when they were published annually but I have to confess I am heartily tired of the recapping of the previous characters/plots. By this time either have a dramatis personae or a 'previously in Maisie Dobbs' prologue because it is very tedious to have to read a dry summary of (say) Maisie and James' relationship when I recall it perfectly.

I am glad that this book avoids WW1, but I feel it is just as much 'filler' as the previous book.

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