The Consequences of Fear

It is September 1941 in London. Young Freddie Hackett earns extra money to help his family by running important government messages around the city. One night, he nearly stumbles into two men fighting. While he hides out watching them, one man stabs the other. Freddie's terror at possibly having been seen is increased when soon afterwards at a delivery address he encounters a man whom he is sure is the killer. The police are no help and so Freddie seeks out investigator, Maisie Dobbs.

Maisie is involved in her own secret government work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and has to step carefully once it becomes apparent that there is much more to the murder Freddie witnessed, that it involves the Free French, the intelligence services and possibly events that took place decades earlier in the Middle East.

None of the crimes solved by Maisie are ever cut-and-dried. Moral questions are always a major feature of her investigations and this particular plotline follows that pattern.

On a personal front, Maisie continues to juggle her work with trying to spend as much time as she can with her adopted daughter Anna, and also the new love of her life, the American, Mark Scott. She also spends rather too much time looking out for the many secondary characters who have played roles in other books in the series and who still remain in her life like some sort of massive extended family. 

It goes without saying that readers already familiar with all the previous novels in the series will get the most out of this one but it seems Maisie's stoic independence has gone off track. Much as I've loved her in the past, I feel it's time she retired. ​

Three stars

(With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC)

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