The White Lady

Jacqueline Winspear takes a break from her long-running Maisie Dobbs series to give us a story about a woman who is trying to deal with stress brought on by her experiences in two world wars. (I suppose what we would now call PTSD.)
It is the late 1940s. Elinore White is just trying to live a quiet life and, if not forget about her past, then at least come to accept it. Of course that is not to be. When London gangsters show up, she reluctantly has to break out old skills.
At first this story seemed somewhat unfocused to me. It is told on three timelines and it seemed to me that much of it was just giving Elinor White's backstory, which I suspected could have been done more economically without all the time jumps. But, I should have trusted Winspear's storytelling fu. As the story progresses, she pulls all the threads together very nicely indeed. There are bad guys of various stripes – some worse than others. There are innocents that need protecting. There is a deep mystery to unravel. And, the MC has demons to expunge.
I have to wonder if this is a one-off or if Jacqueline Winspear is going to start a new series with her Elinore White character? Time will tell, I suppose.
Anyway, quite a good story. Solid 4 stars.