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A review by kris_mccracken
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
3.0
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
The book opens with three seemingly unconnected vignettes that take place across a couple of decades. First, a three-year-old girl disappears overnight while camping in her backyard with her sister. Second, two decades later, a solicitor witnesses the violent murder of his beloved daughter by a seemingly random stranger. Lastly, between the two incidents, a struggling mother loses her temper with her husband seemingly embeds an axe in his skull while their baby looks on.
We then shoot to the present and meet our central character, Jackson Brodie, a struggling private eye (ex-army, ex-police) and an all-around good bloke who has inherited the dregs of the three mysteries. The constant shifting between stories left me dazed at points, and I struggled to keep up with which clue went with what case.
Part- convoluted family melodrama, part- mystery thriller, the book serves up a series of intriguing character studies that recalls the best of Muriel Spark. Still, I found the brisk momentum of the book and ceaseless sliding and tumbling backwards in time undermined the framing narrative as new characters and increasingly improbable events hit the exhausted Jackson.
Nonetheless, the book kept my interest, and we got our resolutions at the end, which is the general requirement of the genre.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ½
The book opens with three seemingly unconnected vignettes that take place across a couple of decades. First, a three-year-old girl disappears overnight while camping in her backyard with her sister. Second, two decades later, a solicitor witnesses the violent murder of his beloved daughter by a seemingly random stranger. Lastly, between the two incidents, a struggling mother loses her temper with her husband seemingly embeds an axe in his skull while their baby looks on.
We then shoot to the present and meet our central character, Jackson Brodie, a struggling private eye (ex-army, ex-police) and an all-around good bloke who has inherited the dregs of the three mysteries. The constant shifting between stories left me dazed at points, and I struggled to keep up with which clue went with what case.
Part- convoluted family melodrama, part- mystery thriller, the book serves up a series of intriguing character studies that recalls the best of Muriel Spark. Still, I found the brisk momentum of the book and ceaseless sliding and tumbling backwards in time undermined the framing narrative as new characters and increasingly improbable events hit the exhausted Jackson.
Nonetheless, the book kept my interest, and we got our resolutions at the end, which is the general requirement of the genre.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ½