The Comfort of Ghosts

A milestone in historical mystery fiction as Maisie Dobbs takes her final bow!

The Comfort of Ghosts completes Jacqueline Winspear’s ground-breaking and internationally bestselling series.

“An outstanding historical series.”—The New York Times

“Winspear is a brilliant writer, mixing the history and the mystery with the psychology of criminals and victims.”—The Historical Novel Society

Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs unravels a profound mystery from her past in a war-torn nation grappling with its future.

London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and Investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and discovers that a demobilized soldier, gravely ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, has taken shelter with the group.

Maisie’s quest to bring comfort to the youngsters and the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental fighter aircraft. As Maisie unravels the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.

The award-winning Maisie Dobbs series has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers, readers drawn to a woman who is of her time, yet familiar in ours—and who inspires with her resilience and capacity for endurance. This final assignment of her own choosing not only opens a new future for Maisie and her family, but serves as a  fascinating portrayal of the challenges facing the people of Britain at the close of the Second World War.

Story Locale:London, 1945

Series Overview: In Jacqueline Winspear's New York Times bestselling series, Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist and investigator in post-WWI London.

About the Author

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of eighteen novels in the award-winning, New York Times, national and international bestselling series featuring psychologist-investigator Maisie Dobbs. In addition, Jacqueline’s 2023 nonseries novel, The White Lady, was a New York Times and national bestseller, and her 2014 WWI novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was again a New York Times and national bestseller, as well as a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do? and an Edgar-nominated memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing.

Author Residence: Northern California

Author Hometown: London, UK