Among the Mad

The sixth installment in the Maisie Dobbs series, the novel is set in London during the winter of 1931–1932, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Maisie Dobbs, a psychologist and private investigator who served as a nurse during World War I, is drawn into a crisis when a traumatized war veteran threatens mass destruction unless the government provides full pensions to all who served.

On Christmas Eve, 1931, Maisie and her assistant, Billy Beale, a Great War veteran, are walking to a client meeting on Charlotte Street when Maisie notices a gaunt, despairing man on the pavement with one leg in a brace. Sensing danger as the man reaches into his greatcoat, she pushes Billy back and approaches with her hand outstretched. The man detonates a Mills Bomb, a type of hand grenade, killing himself and throwing Maisie into the street. She survives with a concussion. Detective Inspector Richard Stratton of Scotland Yard questions her, and she describes the dead man as a wounded soldier likely experiencing shell shock. As they leave, she feels a persistent sensation of being watched.

Before traveling to her father Frankie Dobbs's cottage in Kent for Christmas, Maisie delivers gifts to Billy's family in Shoreditch. There she witnesses the toll of grief on Billy's wife, Doreen, who lost their daughter Lizzie to diphtheria nearly a year earlier. Doreen is gaunt and disheveled, shouting at her sons not to touch presents she bought for their dead sister.

On Boxing Day, Stratton calls Maisie back to London. A threatening letter sent to the Home Secretary demands immediate government action for wounded veterans. The writer gives a 48-hour deadline and mentions Maisie by name. The case falls under Special Branch, a counterterrorism division of Scotland Yard led by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane and his associate, Inspector Colm Darby, a forensic handwriting expert. MacFarlane clears Maisie of suspicion and enlists her on the case. Examining the letter, Maisie and Darby note labored pencil strokes and dried saliva, signs of impaired muscular control.

Maisie consults Dr. Anthony Lawrence, a shell-shock specialist she knew as a wartime nurse, now at the Princess Victoria Hospital, a psychiatric institution. Lawrence describes the scale of untreated war neurosis and the government's pressure to minimize pension liabilities. A hospital porter named Croucher escorts Maisie through the locked wards. Billy confides that Doreen has grown worse, barely eating and unable to care for their children.

The investigation escalates when Billy discovers that dogs at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home have died from symptoms resembling chlorine gas exposure. Through her mentor, Maurice Blanche, a retired intelligence operative, Maisie connects with Professor John Gale, a chemist at Oxford affiliated with Mulberry Point, the government's secret chemical weapons laboratory. Gale confirms that handling volatile agents would require advanced training.

A second threatening letter references the dead dogs and demands veterans' pensions. MacFarlane brings Maisie to 10 Downing Street for a meeting with Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and Gerald Urquhart of Military Intelligence, Section Five (MI5), the domestic intelligence agency. Tensions over jurisdiction between MacFarlane and Urquhart reveal rivalries complicating the case.

Billy locates a street vendor who knew the suicide victim as "Ian," a wounded veteran sometimes seen with a small, neatly dressed companion. Maisie traces the man's full identity through a bookseller on Charing Cross Road: Ian Jennings. His lodgings have been stripped clean. MacFarlane pursues other leads, including Oswald Mosley's Fascist New Party and Irish republicans, but Maisie and Stratton attend an undercover meeting and conclude the Fascists are not involved.

Doreen's condition deteriorates until she attempts to cut her wrist. She is committed to Wychett Hill, a grim Victorian asylum, where she undergoes insulin shock therapy. Maisie arranges Doreen's transfer to the Clifton Hospital in Camberwell, a more humane facility run by Dr. Elsbeth Masters. Masters, who served with all-women medical units in the war, mentions having worked at Mulberry Point with Lawrence but leaving because she disapproved of experimentation on staff.

MacFarlane arrests union activists, including Catherine Jones, a university-trained chemist found with incendiary materials, and dismisses Maisie from the case. That same evening, approximately 50 dead birds are found in Hyde Park, killed by a chlorine-phosgene mixture more lethal than chlorine alone, proving the arrested suspects are not responsible. When a junior minister is then found murdered at his flat by a mysterious powdery substance that liquefies flesh on contact, MacFarlane brings Maisie back.

Jones requests a second interview and describes a man who attended union meetings: intelligent, physically impaired, who called himself a "foundling," meaning an abandoned child, and gave only the first name "Oliver." The word triggers Maisie's memory of the Foundling Hospital, a London institution for abandoned children. She searches the hospital's records and finds no child named Oliver, but the administrator identifies Stephen Oliver, the son of teachers at the institution. A scientific genius who studied at Oxford, Oliver was drafted into chemical weapons research during the war and experienced a severe mental health crisis. His parents, ashamed, told people he had been killed. Gale confirms that Oliver was repeatedly cycled between Mulberry Point and Lawrence's hospital and admits he suspected Oliver created the lethal powder.

On New Year's Eve, a final letter arrives threatening an attack on public celebrations. MacFarlane orders gatherings closed. Maisie rushes to the Princess Victoria Hospital, but Lawrence is absent. She questions Croucher, who denies knowing Oliver but then hurries out. Maisie follows him to a basement flat near Fitzroy Square, where she watches him try to calm the occupant. The man becomes enraged and strikes Croucher dead.

Without waiting for backup, Maisie knocks on the door. The man drags her inside. He is severely scarred, with a curved spine, splayed foot, and clawed hands. He speaks about being invisible, confirms he watched Maisie on Charlotte Street, says Jennings should have waited, and calls Croucher a kind man who tried to help. He seizes Maisie by the throat; she fights free and grabs his jar of chemicals. As police sirens approach, he asks if she believes in heaven. She replies that she thinks there is a better place. He slashes his wrists and falls onto his knife, killing himself. MacFarlane arrives to find Maisie weeping in the street as Big Ben strikes midnight.

The aftermath reveals a deeper conspiracy. Lawrence views the body and insists it is not Stephen Oliver. When Maisie confronts him, Urquhart arrives, revealing MI5's involvement in Oliver's case. Maisie deduces that Oliver may have been deliberately released as an intelligence experiment, that Croucher likely lost his short-term memory through chemical exposure at Mulberry Point, and that Lawrence exploited Oliver for research. Urquhart warns Maisie to keep silent. The killer's true identity remains officially unknown, and his body is released to Lawrence.

In the weeks that follow, Doreen begins recovering at the Clifton Hospital under Dr. Masters's care. Maisie deepens her friendship with Priscilla Partridge, her college friend struggling with anxiety and drinking after returning from France, and counsels Priscilla to take action rather than numb her fears. Maisie buys a camera and photographs people she loves, pinning pictures on her walls. Surrounded by these images, she feels a sense of belonging she has long lacked. She grieves for the dispossessed veterans the case brought her close to but recognizes that she has, at last, reclaimed her own soul.