From New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear?? now available in paperback??the latest episode in the?New York Times?bestselling series?? Maisie Dobbs?? first assignment for the British Secret Service takes her undercover to Cambridge as a professor?? and leads to the investigation of a web of activities being conducted by the emerging Nazi party.

Private investigator Maisie Dobbs receives her first assignment from the British Secret Service in A Lesson in S"s?? the eighth book in Jacqueline Winspear??s award-winning mystery series. Sent to pose as a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge?? she will monitor any activities ??not in the interests of His Majesty??s government.?? When the college??s pacifist founder is murdered?? Maisie finds herself in the midst of sinister web of murder?? scandal?? and conspiracy?? activities that point towards members of the ascendant Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei?the Nazi Party?on Britain??s shores. An instant classic?? and sure to captivate long-time Maisie Dobbs fans as well as readers of Agatha Christie?? Elizabeth George?? and Alexander McCall Smith?? A Lesson in Secrets is ??a powerful and complex novel?? one that will linger in memory as a testament to her talent and her humanity?? (Richmond Times-Dispatch).

Lee Child: People are often surprised that I'm a huge Maisie Dobbs fan because Jack Reacher is all about a kind of Spartan American masculinity and Maisie Dobbs is all about a kind of feminine English refinement. But they're both strong unconventional people. Perhaps that's the cross-genre appeal? Do you find that Maisie attracts an unusual mix of readers?

Jacqueline Winspear: Im thrilled youre such a Maisie Dobbs fan--and you can count me among those millions of Jack Reacher fans. Maisie and Reacher are both unconventional but I believe another factor in their cross-genre appeal is that both have endured life-changing challenges. Maisie attracts diverse readers: men and women all age groups veterans nurses college students people who have faced troubles and people interested in the era.

LC: And in fact your novels are driven by violence far worse than mine--off the page granted but theres no getting around the fact that at the heart of your books is the aftermath of a horrendous war with its attendant violence and death. How do you see the role of violence in your novels?

JW: I think you hit the theme there with ??aftermath.?? The violence in my books is that searing?? painful residue left by the passing of a terrible time?? when people were also crushed emotionally by the deep losses over a four-year period. In addition?? there??s that element of violence that lingers--in Among the Mad?? for example--when war??s tentacles will not let go. We see that again today in the stories of veterans who are still fighting their wars?? but the conflict is raging inside them.

LC: As a kid in England I remember seeing hundreds of maimed old men?? and hundreds of lonely o"My grandfather was an example of the first?? and two great-aunts examples of the second - sad reminders of a terrible time. Was it something similar that drew you to the First World War and the ??Between the Wars?? era that followed?

JW: I have the same memories--my grandfather was wounded at the Battle of the Somme?? and my grandmother was partially blinded at the Woolwich Arsenal?? in an explosion that wounded her sister and killed several girls working alongside her. There were the elderly spinsters in my neighborhood?? and for each there was that old sepia photograph on the mantelpiece?? of a sweetheart or brother lost to war. Those childhood memories led me to think a lot about what happens after war is done. As a character says in Birds of a Feather?? ??That??s the trouble wit"ives on inside the living.??

LC: I was introduced to Maisie Dobbs by my wife?? who passed through an airport and picked up the first in the series. She loved it?? and urged me to read it?? and I'm glad I did. It's one of the very?? very few series we both love equally--in fact?? perhaps the only one. Is this typical of your readers?

JW: I receive so many emails from fans who tell me that the books are read by all members of the family. And many women tell me that it was their husband who first discovered Maisie. The books are as accessible to readers aged about fourteen as they are to seniors. There are few things today that all age groups within a family can engage in?? discuss and get excited about?? so it??s lovely when I hear that family members are awaiting the next book so they can all read it.

LC: Maisie is definitively feminine?? but she's running a business?? and poking around in a "??"which is true to the times?? and indicative of the early stages of feminism in the West. Was that something you wanted to explore?

JW: It would have been difficu