‘Elegy for Eddie’: Another Maisie Dobbs masterpiece
Jacqueline Winspear’s nurse/sleuth would seem right at home on PBS
Why hasn’t Masterpiece snapped up Maisie Dobbs?
Reading Jacqueline Winspear’s Elegy for Eddie, the solid-gold ninth installment in a wonderful mystery series that shows no signs of flagging, you can’t help thinking her nurse-turned-psychologist-turned-sleuth would make an ideal PBS heroine.
Bright, beautiful and yet scarred by her experiences as a World War I nurse, Maisie is the kind of complex, well-written heroine any actor would long to play. Her stories are set in that Downton Abbey- ish period between the two wars that lends itself so well to costuming and dramatization. And not only do those stories boast great characters and well-constructed mysteries, but they also touch on broader issues of class and money and the effect the war had on a society in flux. Never has that been more true than in
Elegy, which sends the now-wealthy Maisie back to her poor Lambeth roots to investigate the death of a “slow” but wellloved neighborhood fixture named Eddie Pettit. But like England itself, the neighborhood is changing — too fast for those who cling to the horses Eddie loved, and too slowly for a few powerful men who see another war looming on the horizon.
As always with Winspear, the why of the crime is more at issue than the who. But what sets Elegy for Eddie apart from the earlier books is her willingness to call her heroine’s motives and behavior into question. It’s similar to the latter-book shift Dorothy Sayers did with Lord Peter Wimsey, and as with Lord Peter, it adds a depth to the story and the character that makes the entire series seem richer and more true.
TV would be nice. But as long as Maisie is left in Winspear’s capable hands, print will do just fine.