The mapping of love and death : a Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear

An American cartographer maps out a claim to a potentially oil-rich piece of California real estate before heading out to fight in WWI.  Many years after the war his body is discovered buried in an Allied Forces trench, the apparent casualty of a German bombing attack.  He left behind a cache of love letters but not the map to the land claim.  His family asks Maisie Dobbs to find the mysterious British nurse who wrote the letters. Maisie's search follows many false trails but eventually leads to the discovery of the missing map and another hidden legacy of the American. Reading about the role of cartographers in WWI is an added bonus! 338 pages.