Jacqueline Winspear Books In Order – Complete List

Last Updated on March 15, 2023 Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the historical mystery series Maisie Dobbs, featuring Maisie, a psychologist and private detective in London starting out in the 1920s after the end of WWI.

Here are the Jacqueline Winspear books in order for her Maisie Dobbs historical mystery novels and the rest of the titles she published. The publication order and reading order are the same in this series.

Jacqueline Winspear Latest Books

Maisie Dobbs Books In Order of Reading and Publication Order

1. Maisie Dobbs, 2003
2. Birds of a Feather, 2004
3. Pardonable Lies, 2005
4. Messenger of Truth, 2006
5. An Incomplete Revenge, 2008
6. Among the Mad, 2009
7. The Mapping of Love and Death, 2010
8. A Lesson in Secrets, 2011
9. Elegy for Eddie, 2012
10. Leaving Everything Most Loved, 2013
11. A Dangerous Place, 2015
12. Journey to Munich, 2016
13. In This Grave Hour, 2017
14. To Die But Once, 2014
15. The American Agent, 2019
16. The Consequences of Fear, 2021
17. A Sunlit Weapon, 2022

Other Maisie Dobbs Books in Order of Publication

• What Would Maisie Do?: Inspiration from the Pages of Maisie Dobbs, 2019
• Maisie Dobbs: A Mysterious Profile, 2022 (part of the Mysterious Profiles series)

Jacqueline Winspear Standalone Novels in Order of Publication

• The Care and Management of Lies, 2015
• The White Lady, 2022

Non Fiction Books

• This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, 2020 (memoir)

About the Maisie Dobbs Books – Overview

Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series are mystery novels set in post-WWI Britain. While each book is set around a particular mystery, readers of this series can learn a lot about those early European times: England between WWI and II. The actual Maisie Dobbs mystery are strongly interconnected with the after-effects of the Great War, showing through the historical mystery genre things that happened to regular, everyday people in those tragic times. Since the stories are linear, reading the Jacqueline Winspear books in order is highly recommended.

Maisie Dobbs

Maisie Dobbs started working at the age of 13 as a maid in a Belgravia mansion where she was often found reading books in the owner’s library. Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche supported her thirst for knowledge and encouraged her to get a better education, however soon the Great War broke out, and her studies had to be interrupted when Maisie went to enlist as a nurse.

In 1929 she set up her own female investigator business where she took her first case about a suspected case of a derailment, a case that not only involved a ruthless serial killer, but also brought her back to her war-related past.

Birds of a Feather

After a year, Maisie’s business began to flourish. She now has an assistant, and a professional office in Fitzroy Square, and she even started cooperating with Detective Inspector Stratton of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad. Maisie’s next case involves finding a runaway heiress who was kept restricted in a golden cage by her father. The woman’s father wants her brought home, but this particular case brings her working closer with Stratton, who is after a murder case in Coulsden.

Pardonable Lies

Maisie Dobbs investigates the death of a WWI pilot, a task that takes her back to her unhappy war days. Maisie, who is also a psychologist along with being a private investigator, takes the case requested by the pilot’s mother who doesn’t believe her son was killed in the war. At the same time she also meets again people she had known before, like her mentor, Maurice Blanche, and  Priscilla Evernden, her friend from college who seems to have ties to the very case she is investigating.

Messenger of Truth

In Messenger of Truth, Maisie Dobbs investigates again the dark legacy of WWI in a society struggling to recollect itself in difficult times. But to solve the mystery of the artist’s death, she will have to remain steady as the forces behind his death come out of the shadows to silence her. At this time, she is investigating the case of famed Mayfair gallery, Nicholas Bassington-Hope, who seemingly died in an accident, but the man’s twin sister believes otherwise.

An Incomplete Revenge

Maisie Dobbs investigates mysterious fires and crimes in a Kent village. A friend asked her to check a land deal there. The villagers are hostile to outsiders and haunted by a Zeppelin attack in the war.

Among the Mad

During Christmas Eve 1931, Maisie Dobbs is off to visit a client when she witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Maisie by name. Soon Maisie becomes involved in a race against time to find a man who proves he has the knowledge and will to inflict death and destruction on thousands of innocent people.

The Mapping of Love and Death

The story switches between 1914 California and 1932 France, where Michael Clifton’s bones are found with love letters. His parents hire Maisie to find the woman who wrote them. Maisie’s search takes her across London and reminds her of her war service as a nurse.

A Lesson in Secrets

It is the summer of 1932 when Maisie Dobbs is asked by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service to go on an undercover assignment to a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities, “not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government.” She soon discovers that the circumstances of Liddicote’s death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty and students under her surveillance.

Elegy for Eddie

In April 1933, Maisie works with costermongers of Covent Garden. One of them, Eddie Pettit, was killed in a car accident, and Maisie is asked to investigate. Maisie’s own father was once a costermonger, so she knows their way of life quite well. As Maisie uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, she must decide whether to risk all to see justice done.

Leaving Everything Most Loved

Maisie Dobbs investigates the murder of Indian immigrants in London in 1933. Scotland Yard failed to make any arrest in the case, and there is reason to believe they failed to conduct a thorough investigation. Bringing a crucial chapter in the life and times of Maisie Dobbs to a close, Leaving Everything Most Loved marks a pivotal moment in this outstanding mystery book series.

A Dangerous Place

It is 1937, four years after Maisie left England. Her stepmother asks her to go back because her father is not getting younger either. On the way, however, she realizes she doesn’t want to go home, so she heads for Gibraltar where she encounters another murder case that she has to solve.

Journey to Munich

Working with the British Intelligence on an undercover mission, Maisie Dobbs is sent to Hitler’s Germany where she has to retrieve a prisoner from Dachau, on the outskirts of Munich. Except, her own enemy, the one who might have been the cause for her husband’s death, is also on her trail.

In This Grave Hour

When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts to the nation Britain’s declaration of war with Germany, a senior agent breaks into Maisie Dobbs’ flat with an urgent assignment: find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some twenty-three years earlier during the first world war. As Maisie’s search for the killer escalates, the country braces for what is to come.

To Die But Once

After England also went to war against Germany,  Maisie Dobbs started investigating the disappearance of a young apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract, which leads her from the countryside of rural Hampshire to the web of wartime opportunism exploited by one of the London underworld’s most powerful men.

The American Agent

In this story, Maisie Dobbs investigates the mysterious murder of Catherine Saxon, an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz. Entangled in an investigation linked to the power of wartime propaganda and American political intrigue being played out in Britain, Maisie will face losing her dearest friend—and the possibility that she might be falling in love again.

The Consequences of Fear

As Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain’s war efforts in September 1941. As Maisie becomes entangled in a power struggle between Britain’s intelligence efforts in France and the work of Free French agents operating across Europe, she uncovers something that could hold disastrous consequences for all involved in the case.

A Sunlit Weapon

A series of possible attacks on British pilots led Jacqueline Winspear’s beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs into a mystery involving First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. To guarantee the safety of the First Lady–and of the soldier being held in police custody–Maisie must uncover the connection between them, while at the same time struggling with Anna, her young daughter who has her struggles in the same war.

Jacqueline Winspear Biography – About the Author

Jacqueline Winspear was born in 1955 in a small village in Kent, United Kingdom, where she grew up.

After graduating from the University of London Institute of Education, since the teaching market was flooded, she started working as a flight attendant as she wanted to see the world.

Next, she took sales and marketing jobs in the fields of academic publishing, higher education and marketing communications.

In 1990 she moved to the US, where she began working as a professional and personal coach. It was during this time that she became again interested in writing books (her childhood dream), and the topic of WWI became a natural choice. She partly based the Maisie Dobbs series on her grandfather’s experience in the First World War. He was badly injured at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and his pain influenced the backdrop of her first novel.

The author has also written several articles in women’s magazines on topics evolving around international education.

A full-time author, she is currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, however, she takes often trips to the UK each year, where she visits her parents in Sussex.

Adaptation of any Jacqueline Winspear Book

The Clintons have acquired the film and TV rights to the Maisie Dobbs series. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are both fans of the books and have shared them with each other over the years.

They announced their acquisition through their production company HiddenLight Productions in September 2021. The company was founded by the Clintons and Sam Branson in December 2020 with a focus on documentary, unscripted and scripted entertainment. No details about the cast, crew or release date of the Maisie Dobbs series on TV have been revealed yet.

Jacqueline Winspear Awards Received and Nominations

Maisie Dobbs

• 2003 Agatha Award for Best First Novel
• 2004 Macavity Award for Best First Novel
• 2004 Dilys Award Best Book nomination
• 2004 Edgar Awards Best Novel nomination
• New York Times Notable Book 2003
• 2004 Alex Award

Birds of a Feather

• 2004 Agatha Award for Best Novel
• 2005 Dilys Award Best Book nomination

Pardonable Lies

• 2005 Agatha Award Best novel nomination
• 2006 Macavity Award for Best Historical Novel

Messenger of Truth

• 2006 Agatha Award Best Novel nomination

The Mapping of Love and Death

• 2011 Left Coast Crime Bruce Alexander Award

Elegy for Eddy

• 2012 Agatha Award Best Historical Novel nomination

A Lesson in Secrets

• 2012 Agatha Award Best Historical Novel nomination