A Dangerous Place
SynopsisPlot
Spring 1937. In the four years since she left England, Maisie Dobbs has experienced love, contentment, stability—and the deepest tragedy a woman can endure. Now, all she wants is the peace she believes she might find by returning to India. But her sojourn in the hills of Darjeeling is cut short when her stepmother summons her home to England; her aging father Frankie Dobbs is not getting any younger. But on a ship bound for England, Maisie realizes she isn’t ready to return. Against the wishes of the captain who warns her, “You will be alone in a most dangerous place,” she disembarks in Gibraltar. Though she is on her own, Maisie is far from alone: the British garrison town is teeming with refugees fleeing a brutal civil war across the border in Spain.
Story
About this book
Set in spring 1937, A Dangerous Place follows Maisie Dobbs as she arrives in Gibraltar after years away from England. Since leaving in the early 1930s, Maisie has lived through deep personal loss, and she is not ready to face home again. When a ship bound for England stops at the British garrison territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, she steps off against the captain's warning, choosing to stay in a place caught between continents and conflicts.
Gibraltar at this point in history is crowded with refugees crossing the border from Spain, where civil war has been raging since the previous summer. Maisie, trained as an investigator and psychologist, finds herself drawn into events surrounding a brutal murder in the garrison town. The story threads together political intrigue, espionage, and personal grief as Maisie navigates a small, tense territory where British military authority, local life, and the chaos of war on the Spanish mainland all press against one another.
The novel is part of Jacqueline Winspear's long-running series featuring Maisie Dobbs, which began with a first book set in the aftermath of the First World War. This installment shifts the geography to the Mediterranean and places Maisie at a distance from her usual London surroundings, isolated and grieving.
