I wanted to love this book. I love the era, I love mysteries and I'm a WW1 buff; this should have been the start of a long friendship. There were three big problems though. First, the unusual nature of Maisie's work - psychologist and investigator - gives an ample opening to lots of new age (anachronism alert!) babble. If one more character talked about "feeling something here" with their hand somewhere on their own torso I was going to give them something to really feel. Maurice spouts the most pyscho-swill but Maisie muses about giving people "space" and giving the past "a voice" too. 
 Second, Winspear relies on coincidence too often. The mystery genre is guilty of this in general but where having yet another murder take place as soon as Miss Marple hits town is forgivable, having nearly every key development rely on coincidence is too much. 
 Third, the ending. I was willing to forgive all of this until the last 20 or so pages when the story went right off the rails. 
 *****SPOILER ALERT**** 
 (view spoiler)[Our heroine is hiding in the brush, watching as her helper is about to hanged by a madman while watched by a potentially violent crowd of mutilated war vets. Maisie has nothing but her wits, her training and her Victorinox penknife to save the man. What does she do? 
 She sings. 
 Out loud. 
 She sings an old war song about battlefield nurses and marches toward the madman. 
 At first I thought Maisie had a brilliant plan to disarm the lot by throwing them into fits of hysterical laughter but, no. The war vets join in. Within seconds a fine old campfire sing-a-long is in progress and Maisie saves the day. 
 Unbelievable. With all her education and experience Maisie can't think of anything better to do? And, with obvious talent, neither can Winspear? Tack on an ending in which all loose ends are quickly tied up and you have a major disappointment. 
 That said I'm still rooting for Maisie and Winspear. I've bought the second book in the series and I'm hoping that the author will relax, rein in the new age silliness, stop the singing, and let Maisie be the interesting resourceful heroine she could be (hide spoiler)]