Maisie falls madly in love with Captain Lynch and makes the decision to leave school and become a nurse, something that interests her, in order to follow him into war. Maisie meets a young man Captain Lynch at his coming-out party, only days before he is destined to journey to France to fight in the war. However, during her studies, the war intervenes. Later, Maisie decides to attend Cambridge University on scholarship, though she knows that she won't ever be awarded a degree – woman at that period of English history were not given credit for their higher education, even if they attended and completed university. He tutors Maisie on many subjects, but particularly on the subjects of psychology, law, and crime, of which he is most partial. Maisie is assigned a personal tutor, Maurice Blanche, a friend of Lady Rowan's who works as a private investigator in his own practice. Lady Rowan sees her potential to be a powerful young woman of the world. Rather than punishing her, Lady Rowan realizes that Maisie might have more potential than she originally assumed the girl is teaching herself Latin from books.

Lady Rowan finds her one night in the library, looking for books to read – reading and learning are some of Maisie's truest passions. Though her father sent her to make a good living and to contribute to the family, Maisie, however, is suited to more than life as a housemaid. Maisie begins her life as a maid for Lady Rowan, living in her home, Belgravia Mansion. Part of the mystery of the book surrounds Maisie's life, and particularly a romance that she begins with a soldier Captain Lynch, whom she follows into war when she takes a position as a nurse on the English front. The second part of the novel takes place much later, in 1929, after the war is over. This part of the narrative begins in 1910, years before the First World War. Maisie Dobbs is split into two disparate parts – the first part of the novel follows Maisie as a young girl, who at age thirteen loses her mother and has to help her father make ends meet by becoming a maid in the house of the socialite and philanthropist Lady Rowan Compton. Set between 19, the book features quirky female private investigator Maisie Dobbs as she solves crimes in post-World-War-I era England. Maisie Dobbs (2003) is the first book of fourteen in a historical mystery novel series by Jacquline Winspear.

Maisie dobbs series in order