Somehow I began this series with the second book, but one of the best features of the series is each book's ability to stand on its own. Maisie is an intelligent, clever woman working as a private investigator and psychologist in and around London, during the period between the world wars. Her background makes her uniquely suited for the work; she began life under the stairs as a serving girl in a great house in London. However, starved for knowledge, she would sneak up into the grand library and spend her nights reading, which came to the attention of her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton. She became Maisie's patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her
wing. Lady Rowan's friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an
investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts
and helped her earn admission to the prestigious Girton College in
Cambridge, where Maisie planned to complete her education. But when the first World War broke out, she lied about her age and went to the front as a nurse. The station where she worked was destroyed by artillery fire leaving her injured and the doctor she had fallen in love with, a shell of a man. The writer is vague about his injuries, but he remains in hospital the rest of his life, unable to speak. Maisie returned to her studies and an apprenticeship with Maurice Blanche, which explains how she came to her career as an investigator with profiling skills.In Birds of a Feather, it is spring of 1930, and Maisie has been hired to find a runaway heiress. But what seems a simple case at the outset soon becomes increasingly complicated when three of the heiress’s old friends are found dead. Is there a connection between the woman’s mysterious disappearance and the murders? Who would want to kill three seemingly respectable young women? As Maisie investigates, she discovers that the answers lie in the unforgettable agony of the Great War.
320 pages
