What Book to Read?

This is the third of the Jackson Brodie stories, published in 2008. It’s better to read the other two first. It is sub-titled A Novel, whereas the previous book was ironically sub-titled A Jolly Murder Mystery. This is perhaps an indication that, even though it is a story about crime, its motives and its results, Atkinson doesn’t think of her work as ‘crime fiction’. If so, I think she is right.

As in the other Jackson Brodie books, there are several stories woven together to make a whole. This time Jackson’s story comes third behind those of Reggie Chase, and Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, a character from the previous book. Neither Jackson, nor for that matter Louise, does much detecting. It is sixteen year old Reggie who pursues the truth more diligently than anyone else, and in doing so, ties the stories together.

Though a number of crimes are committed, and some are resolved, the story is really about loss and love, particularly parental love. What are the rules if a child is lost or in danger? Jackson thinks: ‘If someone he loved was lost, he would stalk the world forever looking for them’. Louise thinks: ‘A mother and her child, wasn’t that the bond at the heart of everything?’ Reggie, an orphan, misses her mother, but now gives all her devotion to Dr Hunter and her baby. But Joanna Hunter says ‘there are no rules’.

A number of grim things happen in the story, (perhaps one too many in my view, though I’m not going to say which one). But the bad is balanced by the good. ‘”It’s always bad news”’, says Louise. ‘”Not always”’, replies her Detective Constable. ‘”Everyone’s dead”’, says Reggie. ‘”I’m not”’, Jackson says. ‘”You’re not”’. There is good news sometimes, though often bought at a huge cost.

Atkinson writes well enough for the nastiest bits to be very nasty. But she also has humour, a lightness of touch and a matter-of-fact style that undercut the horror. She often uses parenthesis to achieve this. ‘Ms MacDonald had “got” religion (goodness knows where from) after her tumor was diagnosed.’ ‘If he’d had time for a considered decision, this wasn’t the person he would have chosen to save (babies, children, women, animals, in that order, was [Jackson’s] preferred roster).’ Or ‘”Shouldn’t you have stayed on at school, Reggie?” Dr Hunter asked, a little frown worrying her pretty features. Reggie imagined this was how she was with her patients (“You really have to lose some weight, Mrs McTavish.”).’

Kate Atkinson’s web site says that a six-part series adapted from Case Histories, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News?, produced for the BBC, will be coming to TV screens in 2011. It will be called Case Histories. I will be really interested to see how such complex stories, with such subtle links, written in such engaging prose will translate to the screen. I hope the series doesn’t over-emphasise Jackson Brodie as a detective, because the books are so much more than crime fiction. This is not to denigrate crime fiction, merely to observe that the interest of these books is as much in the character and actions of the people in the stories as it is in finding the solution to a crime.

You can find more about Kate Atkinson here .