“Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson
Private Investigator Jackson Brodie is presented with three long-cold mysteries. Gradually all three are unraveled and are discovered to be entwined.
I find it remarkable that in both of the Atkinson novels I have read, this and Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Atkinson heavily invests in the complications -- the desperate affection and rivalry -- of sisterly relationships. And, in each novel one sister has had a hand in a death and an other sister takes the blame.
I would so very much like to read an interview with an Atkinson sibling, but it appears that I cannot as wee bit of internet research seems to show that she is an only child, which really disrupts my theory of writing as PTSD therapy. I suppose that is a compliment to Atkinson, that she could concoct such complex relationship drawing not-at-all upon personal experience.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum has a complicated, and often confusing, pattern of narration; Case Histories does not. It reads easily and hooked me early on. The mysteries are well-crafted in that I thought I knew who did what to whom, but I was wrong. And once again I am struck by how well Atkinson writes the internal dialogue of the very young.
The first book in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie Mysteries series, called "The best mystery of the decade" by Stephen King, finds private investigator Jackson Brodie following three seemingly unconnected family mysteries in Edinburg.
Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night.
Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack.
Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.
Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . . (Amazon).
