Here I am lagging behind the rest of the world as usual -- this one came out in 2004 and although I've enjoyed Kate Atkinson's other books I had never got round to this one. Better late than never, I say. I did enjoy it! It's described on the jacket as a "literary thriller" but I don't think that's quite right. For a start it is not exactly "literary", whatever that means -- I take it to mean rather high flown or high falutin or full of learned references and allusions, and it is none of those. It is extremely well written, but in a very pleasingly unobtrusive way. And it is not a thriller, though it is certainly a crime novel, and a very ingenious one at that. The title says it all, in a sense -- it is indeed the story of several case histories, all of them involving in one way or another the ex- Detective Inspector turned private investigator Jackson Brodie. A child who went missing over thirty years ago -- a teenager who was murdered ten years earlier -- a woman who was imprisoned for the murder of her husband -- all apparently quite disparate, but all turning out to have unexpected connections. Great plot, very enthralling, a real page turner -- I finished it in the small hours of this morning. But what makes the book an even greater delight is the character of Jackson Brodie. Suffering from the after effects of a failed marriage, trying his best to be a good father to his much loved eight year old daughter, smoking too much, suffering from toothache and lusting after his dentist, Jackson is definitely a flawed hero. But he is also that most difficult of characters to portray, a really good man, or at least a man who is striving hard to be good. Jackson makes mistakes, he bumbles, he gets things wrong, but he is immensely likeable. All the characters here are -- if not likeable, at least fascinating and intriguing, and the twists of the plot extremely well done. And I was complaining recently that contemporary novels never have happy endings -- well, here is one that does. Great stuff.
