Review: 'The White Lady,' by Jacqueline Winspear

If Daphne du Maurier rewrote a John le Carré manuscript, it might resemble "The White Lady."

Best known for 17 novels featuring detective Maisie Dobbs — which are not only set in the first half of the 20th century but read like they could have been written then (when du Maurier was churning out bestsellers) — Jacqueline Winspear launches a possible new series with "White Lady." It takes place in 1947 and introduces Elinor De Witt, who became a World War I heroine as a teenager in Belgium, contributed further derring-do in World War II, and is now a semiretired busybody in rural England.

Every bit of that description will be familiar to Dobbs fans. Winspear doesn't venture far from that character in creating Elinor, who undoubtedly would be pals with the similarly kind, curious, haunted-by-war-trauma Maisie. The key difference is that, instead of helping charwomen locate missing sons like Maisie, Elinor uses her skills at sending coded messages and sneaking behind enemy lines to assist neighbors who fled the long arm of the London mob.

Unlike le Carré, whose good guys and bad guys are tough to tell apart, Winspear resists ambiguity. Her "The White Lady," set in a simpler time, gives readers a new do-gooder to enjoy doing good.

Chris Hewitt is a critic and features writer for the Star Tribune.

The White Lady

By: Jacqueline Winspear.

Publisher: Harper, 321 pages, $30.