Case Histories

Kate Atkinson once again brings readers a novel that will have them eagerly turning the pages. The novel is set in Cambridge, where private investigator and former police detective Jackson Brodie is quietly contemplating life as a divorced father. Despite being a reluctant detective, Brodie has an ineluctable conscience, and his fuzzy, semi-articulated desire to right the world's wrongs comes in handy when he finds himself thrown into the midst of three resurrected crimes.

The first case involves Olivia, who, while sleeping in a tent with her sisters in their family's garden, disappears with her treasured blue toy mouse. Years later, Olivia's sisters are disturbed when they find Olivia's blue mouse locked in their recently deceased father's study. The second case involves Theo's daughter Laura, who was murdered in his law office. Theo still obsesses about the unidentified man in the yellow golf shirt who ran in shouting his name before slicing his daughter's throat. The last case is that of Michelle, who lived the so-called good life with her annoying husband and new baby in the countryside, until she was found sitting in her kitchen next to her husband's body, an axe buried in his head. Jackson is approached to solve these cases, all of which happened more than a decade ago.

Jackson, however, has problems of his own, and as he delves into the past he finds his own future threatened. His friendship with the elderly Binky, who wants him to trace a missing cat, ends up making matters far worse when she introduces him to her nephew from South Africa. As if his new status as a single man and weekend father is not already enough, someone cuts his brake lines and causes an accident. A few days later, someone also blows up his house. These incidents may relate to any one of the three cases, but despite the danger, he is not about to drop them. Brodie understands his clients' need for closure, and is set on doing everything in his power to give it to them.

Case Histories is about the consequences of crime and love, and deals with the grimmest elements of modern life, including incest, murder, loneliness, and paranoia. Atkinson's book has the feel of a detective novel, but discards convention by refusing to provide pat solutions to each mystery. Nevertheless, it remains entertaining and satisfying as a whole. "In Case Histories, people have grudges and crushes. They don't understand things. They are not absolved. They are funny, pathetic, kind and cruel, sometimes all at once." This book will shock you and make you laugh, and although it contains enough ideas to have filled three novels, Atkinson has served it up together to create an intriguing, potent concoction.