Set in England between 1910 and 1929, it features the title character Maisie Dobbs, a private investigator building her business in the aftermath of the First World War.

Maisie becomes a maid at the Belgravia Mansion of Lady Rowan Compton in 1910 at thirteen years old, after her mother dies, and she must help her father make ends meet.

Deciding that the war efforts are extremely important to her and her country, Maisie volunteers as a nurse at the front, where she meets a young man, with whom she falls in love.

[1] Winspear notes that Maisie is "very much a woman of her time" and her interest in the lives of women in Europe during the years surrounding World War I became a backdrop for the story.

[3] At first she did not set out to write a war novel, but her deep interest in history provided a framework for the character of Maisie Dobbs to develop.

The title character was described as strange, clever, and resourceful by New York Times Book Review crime columnist Marilyn Stasio.

Kirkus Reviews stated: "Winspear rarely attempts to elevate her prose past the common romance, and what might have been a journey through a strata of England between the wars is instead just simple, convenient and contrived.