A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear

When pilot Jo Hardy, a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary, is shot at from the ground while ferrying a Spitfire to another location in Britain, she is stunned and wonders who could be the culprit. With her friend Diana in tow, Jo goes to the spot where she feels the shots came from and finds African-American soldier Matthias Crittenden bound and gagged in a barn. After Matthias tells the women that a friend he was with was taken by some men and then a fellow female pilot is shot down and killed, Jo hires private detective Maisie Dobbs to look into the incidents and figure out who's responsible. Maisie discovers that it could be connected to those who are trying to assassinate first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on her visit to England during this fall of 1942. A Sunlit Weapon is the latest book in the Maisie Dobbs series and is satisfying to those readers who enjoy catching up with Maisie and those in her circle.