His Majesty's Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal

It is 1941, only a few days before Christmas as the novel begins with Winston Churchill’s visit to The United States to meet with President Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s Confidante finds American-born Maggie back in the United States. Maggie will find it a very challenging assignment, as she comes into contact with people who are part of her own troubled past and discovers some very nasty practices in the Nazi regime. She is instructed by another spy, Kim Philby as the author mixes reality and fiction in the background to the story. She is to become Margareta Hoffman in order to work with the underground resistance. His Majesty’s Hope begins with Maggie, barely recovered from her last adventure, being prepared to go into Germany in disguise. Maggie proved to be intelligent and brave – as well as beautiful, and she soon becomes a very accomplished agent for the British government.

The heroine, Maggie Hope, began her career in the typing pool for Prime Minister Churchill but was quickly promoted when her skill at breaking codes was discovered. I have just read a couple of the most recent in the Maggie Hope series. If you have been reading the Maisie Dobbs Series by Jacqueline WInspear or the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd, I suspect you will enjoy this series as well. One of these new series is the The Maggie Hope Mystery series by Susan Elia MacNeal. Perhaps just a slight step up on the literary ladder than the earlier “cosies”. Recently it seems that these books have been replaced with novels that are slightly more intelligent, the writing is a bit of a step up, and they often have some historical background, so there is a more substance to them, while still requiring little discipline from the reader. These are books for readers who were looking for fairly mindless entertainment – what I call TV reading, they are stories that simply pass the time and make few demands of any kind on the reader. There used to be several mystery series labeled “cosies” to indicate that they are easy to read, simple novels more involved with the characters lives and less concerned with the details of the murder.

His Majesty's Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal