Jacqueline Winspear's latest, The White Lady, is a stand-alone novel featuring a new heroine. We meet Elinore White in Kent, England, two years after the end of the Second World War. She's a mystery to her neighbors, known by many as "the quiet woman" since she so rarely interacts with those she encounters. This changes when she meets Jim and Rose Mackie, and becomes entranced by their infant daughter, Susie. Elinore soon becomes aware of a threat to the young family, and she instinctively acts to protect them, in the process uncovering a dangerous criminal gang about to unleash a crime spree in London. Working with Scotland Yard, Elinore seeks to foil the plot while keeping the Mackies out of harm's way.

The primary plot is peppered with flashbacks to Elinore's past that serve to gradually reveal who this enigmatic woman truly is. Beginning with her role as a pre-teen saboteur in ...