TO DIE BUT ONCE features Maisie Dobbs, who trained to be a nurse during the Great War, studied legal medicine, and has grown along with the history background. Nowadays she has an office in London on the Tottenham Court Road, from where she operates as Psychologist and Investigator. A friend comes and tells her that his son Billy Coombes has gone missing. The lad was an apprentice painter, who was traveling around RAF bases painting fire-retardant paint onto the walls. This chemical-based paint gave him headaches. But this was vital work, and he's not the sort to desert. Maisie agrees to investigate, as the father can't be spared from his work.

Running in parallel is the reported account of Hitler's army forcing its way through the Low Countries to France, where the British Expeditionary Force sit with antiquated equipment. The reader knows this will lead to the mass evacuation from Dunkirk, but we see the build-up through the eyes of those who have men over in France, worrying for their lives. Maisie heads down to Hampshire, a large agricultural county, and makes her inquiries. But the crew here believe Billy went home to London. When Billy is found, it's not good news.

I love all the period detail, from children with measles, to silk being used to insulate electrical cables. Class boundaries were often pushed aside and women took on work they had never tried. At the end, the author's note explains that her father was a similar house painter called to apply the special paint; her aunt inspired a character from the WAAF, having driven ambulances. Two of her uncles stood on the beach at Dunkirk awaiting boats. The personal and the fictional mix well in the evocative tale, a mysterious death proving a good device to draw us into the times and lives the author wishes to reflect.

If you have not read any earlier books in Jacqueline Winspear's series, you will be able to pick up as much background as needed to follow Maisie, especially if you enjoy British historical fiction. I warn you though, after TO DIE BUT ONCE you will instantly want to go and find the earlier books about tenacious Maisie Dobbs.

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