I've been reading the Maisie Dobbs series here and there for the last ten years and was thrilled when I was given the chance to read her latest edition early. I have loved following Maisie as she serves and recovers from serving in WWI, becomes a private detective, finally falls in love (twice) and has a family before being thrust back into war with the onset of WWII. This is the final book in the series and it was a satisfying and beautiful conclusion.

Very disappointed this series is ending. But a great finale - stories tying up and questions answered. I will miss Maisie Dobbs and all of you friends, colleagues and family.

Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history squat in a vacant Belgravia mansion, abandoned by its owners during the heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and finds a gravely ill demobilized soldier, struggling with his wartime experiences, sheltering with the group.

Maisie’s effort to bring comfort to the youngsters and the ailing soldier uncovers a decades-old mystery involving her late husband, James Compton, who died piloting an experimental fighter aircraft. As she unravels the threads of her husband’s life, Maisie confronts her own painful past and questions long-held beliefs.

The award-winning Maisie Dobbs series has captivated hundreds of thousands of readers, drawn to a woman who is both a product of her time and relatable in ours, inspiring with her resilience and endurance. This final assignment, chosen by Maisie herself, not only opens a new future for her and her family but also offers a fascinating portrayal of the challenges faced by the British people at the end of the Second World War.

"The Comfort of Ghosts" is, according to Jacqueline Winspear, the last novel her popular series featuring the brilliant and compassionate Maisie Dobbs. As those who have followed Maisie's adventures know, she started out as a maid at the age of thirteen, but was fortunate to become the protégé of a wealthy mentor, Maurice Blanche. She attended good schools, studied psychology, and established her own private enquiry firm. Each of the books has at least one murder that Maisie sets out to solve and, along the way, the author delves deeply into Maisie's personal life.

In this story, which opens in October 1945, Maisie discovers four adolescents squatting in the Compton family's empty Belgravia mansion. She is determined to help these hungry and frightened youngsters. The children claim to have seen a man being shot in cold blood, and they fear that someone will come after them to keep them quiet. In addition, Maisie's colleague, Billy Beale, is distressed when his son comes back a broken man after having been starved and tortured in a Japanese prison camp. There is a large cast of characters, quite a few additional subplots, and bittersweet reminiscences of Maisie's joys and sorrows from her girlhood until the present day.

The mystery that preoccupies Maisie is only mildly interesting and its anticlimactic solution is a letdown. More compelling are the passages about Maisie's relationship with her husband; precocious ten-year-old daughter; loving parents; the mother of Maisie's late husband, Lady Rowan Compton; and troubled best friend, Priscilla, all of whom take up a great deal of Maisie's time and energy. There is a contrived surprise at the end that requires a substantial suspension of disbelief. However, it gives Maisie, a perennial do-gooder, yet another opportunity to build bridges and provide solace to those who are tormented by guilt and sorrow. This is a an overly long and convoluted finale, but diehard fans will be eager to bid farewell to Winspear's iconic heroine.

Nicely wraps up Maisie, though I'm sure going to miss her. What a wonderful, poignant, enjoyable - - - -and horrible to finish - - - title. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Winspear puts out for us to devour.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book. What a wonderful conclusion to a lovely series. Historical fiction at it's absolute best with the paranormal thrown in is perfection. Highly recommend

For 18 books I have been following the life of Maisie Dobbs. Yes I said life and not character, because Maisie is as real to me as any other historical figure whose biography I have read. She has lived a full life full of up and downs. We have not come to the end of the story but not the end of her life. She will live on the shelves waiting for other readers to discover her story.

The Comfort of Ghosts is an homage to Maisie and her made family. She has been a steadfast friend to so many and in the latest book once again she helps the downtrodden find solace. She will right the wrongs that have occurred no matter who the perpetrator(s) were. Maisie rises to the occasion and is truly a Lady in all ways.
Thank you Jacqueline Winspear for such a wonderful series.

The final Maisie Dobbs book sees Maisie and her extended family dealing with the end of World War II with soldiers returning home and orphans needing a place in the world. ARC from NetGalley.

An excellent ending to the series. Maisie mentioned old cases and caught up with old friends while solving the current mystery. The mystery itself isn't the biggest focus but the four young people that are involved do take up a good portion of the book and allow characters to grow while dealing with their problems. I am sad to see the last of the series but this was a solid ending.

Although I am sad to see the Maisie Dobbs series end, this was a very worthy conclusion.

Maisie is sent to the Compton's London house to roust a group of squatters. What she finds is a group of teenagers who served as spies in England, deployed to disrupt the Nazis if they made it ashore, and a recently released prisoner of war who happens to be her long time assistant Billy's son Will. Soon she is helping the teens, who witnessed a murder, find safety and employment, and Will to recover and find a home again with his family. She solves a Compton family mystery as well, and wraps up everything in a neat bow of sorts before riding of into the sunset with Mark and Anna.

Long time readers of this series well love its ending. It's everything we loved about the series and these characters, and it answers some of the questions we are asking, and leaves others to our imagination. Thanks to Jacqueline Winspear for an extraordinary series that thought me so much about the tumultuous years of the 1910s to the 1940s in England.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

Oh how I've missed Maisie and how sad I am to know this is the end. This was a great way to wrap up the series although I do wish it were longer. I'm not ready to be done with Maisie and her gang yet!

Oh, Maisie, how I will miss you! “The Comfort of Ghosts” is the final book in Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series. World War II has ended, soldiers are returning home, and Britain is starting to put itself back together. Maisie learns there are squatters in her family’s Belgravia mansion that has been sitting empty for much of the war. As she investigates, she discovers they are terrified children. How did children end up hiding in a posh mansion and where are their families? Why are they terrified?

Maisie discretely reaches out to her contacts and learns how the children were connected to the war effort, why they are hiding, and how she can help them feel safe. The next part of the story momentarily confused me. The mystery was solved, but there’s still more than half of the story left. What? How? Then realization dawned that Maisie was closing this chapter of her life as she had done with so many of her cases. And it was perfect.

Maisie Dobbs’ fans will not be disappointed with this ending. Pick it up today. If you haven’t read the series, start at the beginning; it’s worth your time.

I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley and Soho Press, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I did not get very far in The Comfort of Ghosts, and I do apologize. While I do appreciate your granting me early access to this novel, I soon realized that I'm just not ready to read the final Maisie Dobbs novel. I have followed Maisie ( and Jacqueline Winspear) through the entirety of their intertwined careers, and I’m not ready to let it go. So, I will of course buy The Comfort of Ghosts on or soon after June 11, and I will eventually read it. When I feel I can truly say farewell.
I hope you all understand.

I will miss Maisie Dobbs!

It is sad when a series comes to an end, even more so when you have read every book in the series when it first came out and everything else by an author! The final Maisie Dobbs, the Comfort of Ghosts, does not disappoint. It has a bit of an introduction to the character, so might be able to be read as a standalone, however, it contains references to incidents in the other books and contains spoilers for the earlier books. The plot, as always, is intricate and the characters well described and sensitively treated. Highly recommended!

Thank you to the publisher who lent me an e-arc via Netgalley. This review is optional and my own opinion.

The Comfort of Ghosts is the final novel in the Maisie Dobbs series. It references several events from past instalments, which means it contains spoilers for those books. This one also relies heavily on the reader’s knowledge of occurrences/characters in previous installments

Our story begins with a funeral. Lord Julian Compton, father of Maisie’s first husband, James, is being laid to rest. The Comptons had been a huge force for good in Maisie’s life since she was very young, and she, Lord Julian, and his wife Rowan remained close even after James’ death and Maisie’s remarriage.

After the funeral, in conversation with the family’s lawyer, Maisie learns the Compton’s London residence has been requisitioned by squatters. It’s a common problem now that the war is over, and those displaced by bombs are looking for shelter. However, the will requires the unlawful tenants be evicted and the property promptly sold. The lawyer wishes for the family’s authorization to call the police, but Maisie wants to exercise compassion and is determined to go herself. She hopes she can arrange an alternative dwelling for the people involved.

What Maisie finds is a much larger problem than she expected. One of the residents is Will Beale, Billy’s son, just back from a Japanese war camp and much the worse for wear. He doesn’t wish his family to see him in his current state – indeed, his guilt coupled with his poor physical condition have him hoping for death – and Maisie sends him to Pris’ house so the former nurse can whip him back into shape. It is the other guests, however, who represent the real conundrum. The four bright but wary teens – Mary, Grace, Archie, and Jim – are orphans who were trained in Britain’s Civilian Army, a plan implemented in case of invasion. They know how to fight, how to sabotage the enemy, how to spy, and most importantly, how to run.

They witnessed a murder that is being hidden by the authorities, and they are very much concerned that the powers that be might wish to silence them permanently as well. Never one to back away from a problem, Maisie quickly determines to help them – but that will be easier said than done.

It is almost impossible to rate/grade a finale eighteen volumes in the making. If you have traveled this far with Maisie and company, there is no question as to whether or not you will wish to read this. As to whether or not you will enjoy it, I would say temper your expectations. This is more a soft but flawed landing than a fireworks show ending with thrilling bursts of colors and inspiring music.

The first seventy-five percent of the tale deals with the mess the teens have landed in. The clues are easy to follow, and Maisie makes quick work of tracking down leads to come to a satisfying conclusion. A tad disturbing is that the author uses this as a chance for Maisie to catch up with men who used to carry a torch for her. We find out that they still do, which felt a bit awkward to me. I’m not sure what the purpose of that was but I think it ties in to what propells the last twenty-five percent of the story.

The back blurb tells us that Maisie’s quest “to bring comfort and the promise of a future to the youngsters . . . brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband.” The enigma of the final quarter of the book deals with the above. While in the house, one of the teens stumbled upon a set of letters that harken back to the very first book in the series, and Maisie’s old friend Enid. If you have forgotten about her, you might want to do a quick dive back into that initial narrative to refresh your memory. I won’t get into the details of it but will speculate that this plot, along with the failed romances referenced in the earlier portions, are meant to remind us that Maisie is with whom she is meant to be.

If you write a good character, you don’t need to make their competitors bad in order for them to shine. On the other hand, if you write a bad one, surrounding them with worse options won’t add any luster – it’ll just make me wonder why you didn’t fix the initial problem. I’ve mentioned before that I find Mark, the winner of the race/war/battle for Maisie’s heart, a rather tedious addition to these stories, and I will say that despite the author’s efforts, that does not change in this book. The story would have read more smoothly and been far more interesting if the mysteries had been more intricate and we had seen Maisie once more at her investigative best. The little puzzles she is given to work with here feel too easily resolved, and as a result, we spend far too much time on her annoying personal life.

Of course, reviews are just one reader’s opinion. Some of you may well love Mark and find The Comfort of Ghosts just enhances that. For me, it was bittersweet. I have been with Maisie and her friends for over a decade and am sorry to see them ride off into the sunset. I am grateful, however, that the author gives us this closure and that she does so by reminding us of where we started.

With The Comfort of Ghosts, Jacqueline Winspear brings the Maisie Dobbs series to its natural end with the eighteenth and final book. It’s late 1945 and the war is finally over and once again, Winspear is concerned about the lingering after-effects of war trauma on everyone involved. The mystery part of the story, in many ways, is the lesser part, simply something for our beloved characters to do as we spend one last time in their company – I suspect that most Maisie fans read these books for the characters and the historical fiction elements rather than the crime anyway. In this case it’s about four teenaged orphans that Maisie finds squatting in Lord and Lady Compton’s London home. Why are they on their own, who are they hiding from and who is the sickly returned soldier asleep upstairs?

None of these mysteries are hard to work out, rather Winspear uses them to highlight how children were often used during the war as messengers and spies, whilst leading Maisie into the seedy and sinister world of Nazi sympathisers within the British aristocracy. She also shows us, via Will Beale, the difficulties many of the soldiers returning home from Changi experienced.

The Comfort of Ghosts is very much about closure.

Winspear gives Maisie time to lay her ghosts to rest and allows all her devoted readers to do the same. We can safely say farewell with the knowledge that the grieving, traumatised young Maisie we first met after WWI has found a way to appease her personal ‘dragons’. She can now look forward to a happy, post-war, middle-aged life with her new husband and their adopted daughter, and we can find a new series to love.

The 18th and final Maisie Dobbs book, I have read them all and will sorely miss reading a new adventure. My only gripe over the years was a bit too much talk about the clothing the woman wore, but the last couple havent had that - maybe due to the seriousness and deprivations of the WWII setting. Maisie has a new challenge in this post war tale of four squatting teenagers and Billy’s son who has returned from the horrors of the Japanese POW camps, but of course she puts it all to rights. The last part of the book is a putting to rights of the past “ghosts” of her life to enable her to move on to her new life with her husband and adopted daughter. Only slightly disappointed that traditional domesticity will be the order of the day.

This was my first venture into the world of Maisie Dobbs. While I know that is her final book, I found myself wishing that the pace and mystery itself was a bit more exciting. The big mystery is solved relatively easily and then a secondary mystery is revealed to finish out the book. As a final bow I am kind of saddened. Maybe this is the pace of the rest of the series. From this book I do see this falling into the cozy mystery genre. Which I tend to enjoy, plus I love finding a new historical mystery to sink my teeth into. Sadly, this one was not quite my cup of tea. Yet I think this series in general will be perfect to recommend to patrons looking for a cozy historical mystery.
Thank you so much to Soho Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

I was looking forward to this book with both trepidation and excitement - excitement because it was a Maisie Dobbs book and trepidation as it is the last one. I have so loved getting to know Maisie and seeing how her life unfolded. She is a treasured character and I will miss her!

This final novel finds Maisie in England after the end of WWII. She and Mark are winding down their work lives in order to spend more time together and with their adopted daughter, Anna. Lord Julian Compton has passed away and Lady Rowan is left to find her own way after decades of marriage. Maisie discovers squatters in the Ebury Place house and a Will Beale in hard straits after his service in the East. The threads in this last story are woven tight and they put Maisie's mind and heart to the test. Closure is strong in this book and at the end I was happy with how everything worked out and Maisie's exit. I will miss her but it has been a wonderful journey!

It is 1945, the war is over, but England is still suffering. Almost bankrupt, rationing is ever present and lives are still hanging in the balance. Maisie Dobbs discovers the son of her assistant, Billy, has stumbled to the house where Maisie used to live after being demobilized. Young Billy, as he is called, is suffering from severe malnutrition after a stint in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He barely knows who he is. There are four young people squatting at the house as well. They are trying to care for Billy, but having trouble. They tell Maisie their story and she promises to help them, but first she has to save Billy. She takes him to her friend's house and gets a doctor in to see. Soon he is feeling better, at least physically. Maisie has to protect the four squatters because they are being hunted for by the War Office for supposedly killing a pro-Nazi sympathizer. Maisie knows they are innocent. Meanwhile, Maisie's mentor, Lord Julian Compton, has died and Maisie has to take care of his widow, Lady Rowan. She also has to support her new American husband in his efforts to assist England. There is a lot going on, but it is a remarkable ending to this long-running series. I used to read the new book in this series as soon as it came out, but I have missed the last several, I do not know why. I am going to have to go back and catch up. I recommend this series for anyone seeking insights into life in England before, during and after WWII.