THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR

October 1941 finds Maisie Dobbs continuing her espionage work while Great Britain is locked in a do-or-die fight against the Nazis.

As she continues her secret work for spymaster Robbie MacFarlane while also running her detective business, Maisie’s affair with Mark Scott, her American counterpart, has reached an inflection point. Maisie is a mother, a nurse, a veteran spy, and a psychologist who sees that young Freddie Hackett, one of many speedy boys running messages around London, is at his breaking point. His father is a drunk who beats him; his mother is desperate to protect Freddie and her daughter who has Down syndrome. Now the police have blown off Freddie’s claim to have witnessed a murder. Since the killer turns out to be the recipient of the message he was on his way to deliver when he saw the crime, Freddie’s in a position to give an excellent description of him. Maisie, who’s found it harder and harder to vet people who may be sent off to work with the French Resistance, especially because so many of them will be tortured and killed by the Nazis, meets a French officer who fits Freddie’s description of the killer while she’s in Scotland reviewing a new group. But MacFarlane refuses to help her with the case because relations with the Free French require a delicate balance. Undeterred, Maisie uses her contacts to unveil a story of treachery and deceit dating back to the last war, knowing that all the balls she’s desperately juggling will come crashing down if she makes a mistake.

A fast-paced tale of mystery and spycraft whose exploration of inner doubts and fears makes it much more.