Review by New York Times Review
A country murder, a train crash, a missing mother: everything collides in Kate Atkinsons latest Jackson Brodie mystery. IT'S hard to imagine a novel starting in a more gripping or terrifying way than Kate Atkinson's new mystery, "When Will There Be Good News?" A stranger with a carving knife ambushes a young family on a deserted country lane, killing mother, daughter, baby, even the dog. The only survivor is the fleet-footed daughter Joanna. Thirty years later, Joanna is Dr. Joanna Hunter, married with a baby and dog of her own, and the man convicted of the slaughter of her family is being released from prison. On that same day, the ex-army man and ex-detective Jackson Brodie is accidentally boarding a doomed train, headed not in the direction of London and his new wife, but toward Edinburgh and an old flame, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, "the one that got away." And as fate would have it Reggie Chase, a plucky teenage girl, recently orphaned and wise beyond her years, sits translating the "Iliad" just feet from the railroad tracks. Now there's a setup. Fans of Atkinson's novels like "Behind the Scenes at the Museum," which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year, and her two previous literary detective novels, "Case Histories" and "One Good Turn," both featuring the rugged yet sensitive Brodie, can expect "When Will There Be Good News?" to follow standard procedure. Fact: Atkinson doesn't write typical crime novels, but literary hybrids. Exhibit A: Unlike Agatha Christie's briskly plotted whodunits, Atkinson's thrillers unfold leisurely. In this case, chapters provide alternating points of view, which, while intimately acquainting us with each character's back story, can at times derail the novel's narrative momentum. Exhibit B: Unlike the hard-boiled dicks and dames in Chandler's and Hammett's page-turners, Atkinson's characters don't exchange shotgun blasts of dialogue or see the world through a dirty glass. They refer to the works of Browning and Hemingway, and quote Scripture. They sing nursery rhymes and dirges, and crack literary jokes. Louise characterizes her previous relationship with Brodie as being "as chaste as protagonists in an Austen novel. All sense and no sensibility, no persuasion at all." And struck by the mounting death toll of those close to her, steady-as-she-goes Reggie wonders whether she's more "troubled teen or angel of death?" Exhibit C: There will be no corraling of suspects into a darkened parlor. No show-stopping moments of revelation à la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where the motive and manner of the crime are exposed. Why, you ask? Because there is little mystery as to who committed the crimes, and few clues as to why. The mysteries Atkinson is most invested in are those of the human heart. Note: There are, however, elements of the classic mystery that Atkinson does embrace, most notably the coincidence. As Jackson Brodie says, "A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen." To wit: When Brodie's train collides with a car stranded on the tracks, his whole life is literally turned upside down. His wallet, his Blackberry and his memory all go missing. As he sprawls half-dead on the hillside, it is Reggie Chase who breathes life back into him - coincidentally, she learned CPR during her training to become a mother's helper to Dr. Joanna Hunter. And how curious that Hunter and her son are the same age as her mother and brother were when they were stabbed to death. More evidence of Atkinson's fondness for coincidence: It just so happens that the man Reggie has saved is not only a sleuth but "a shepherd," who "couldn't rest until the flock was accounted for, all gathered safely in. It was his calling and his curse. Protect and serve." How fortunate that when Joanna Hunter and her baby suddenly disappear and her handsome ne'er-do-well husband, under suspicion of arson, attempts to stonewall Reggie's efforts to locate her, Jackson is ready to take the case. Though whether or not Joanna Hunter needs protecting, whether or not she's still a victim, remains to be seen. NOTE: Despite an arresting first chapter, what seems of most interest to Atkinson isn't the solving of crimes, but the solving of the problem of being alive. What happens to those left behind, the ones held hostage by sorrow and disappointment? How do we pull ourselves out of the rubble of grief? How do we cope with the death of a loved one, transcend a childhood worthy of Dickens, survive the accident of having married the wrong person? How do we get what we need? Conclusion: While Atkinson engages us with black humor and rich character development and while Reggie Chase is a delight, the absence of sustained suspense begins to fray our connection to the characters. Sensing perhaps that she's lollygagging, Atkinson sprints for the last 75 pages, delivering a rushed, overly neat ending that, while cleanly tying up the big threads, leaves many questions about the characters and their futures unanswered. My powers of deduction suggest Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?" is, and this is just a theory, a setup for the next, and, I trust, more satisfying Jackson Brodie mystery. Of course I don't have proof. That's just a guess. Elissa Schappell is editor at large for Tin House magazine, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of "Use Me," a novel.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the third novel in her Jackson Brodie series and what may be the best entry yet, Atkinson offers another fascinating glimpse into her dark worldview. The novel opens with a horrific scene as six-year-old Joanna Mason watches a maniac slice up her mother, sister, and baby brother. Thirty years later, the killer is released on parole, and Joanna, now an Edinburgh GP with a baby of her own, has gone missing, but only Joanna's nanny, Reggie Chase, an old soul despite her young years, is convinced that Joanna is in danger. Then Jackson Brodie, reluctant PI and protector of women, crashes the scene, literally, when the train he is riding derails. Reggie saves his life and then asks Jackson to save Joanna and her baby. In Atkinson's world, the most vulnerable are easy prey ( In some Utopian nowhere, women walked without fear ), but the mayhem is offset by the expansiveness of her singular narrative voice. Hard-charging detective Louise Monroe (returning from One Good Turn, 2006), one of four revolving narrators, moves from bitingly funny rants on the burdens of domesticity to teasing sexual banter to a grim tip of the hat to the many women murdered while trying to protect their children ( Give medals to all the women ). It is that tonal range that gives this novel its incredible richness.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. In Atkinson's stellar third novel to feature ex-cop turned PI Jackson Brodie (after One Good Turn), unrelated characters and plot lines collide with momentous results. On a country road, six-year-old Joanna Mason is the only survivor of a knife attack that leaves her mother and two siblings dead. Thirty years later, after boarding the wrong train in Yorkshire, Brodie is almost killed when the train crashes. He's saved by 16-year-old Regina Reggie Chase, the nanny of Dr. Joanna Hunter, née Mason. In the chaos following the crash, Brodie ends up with the wallet of Andrew Decker, the recently released man convicted of murdering the Mason family. Enter DCI Louise Monroe, Brodie's former love interest, who's tracking Decker because of a recent case involving a similar family and crime. When Dr. Hunter disappears, Reggie is convinced she's been kidnapped and enlists the reluctant Brodie to track her down. A lesser author would buckle under so many story lines, but Atkinson juggles them brilliantly, simultaneously tying up loose ends from Turn and opening new doors for further Brodie misadventures. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Evocative, smart, literary, and funny, Atkinson's third novel featuring one-time police detective Jackson Brodie (after Case Histories and One Good Turn) is both complicated and a page-turner. Set mostly around Edinburgh, Scotland, the tale begins with a six-year-old girl escaping an attacker who kills her mother, eight-year-old sister, and baby brother. Atkinson then weaves a plot that connects Brodie to the girl, now an adult, through coincidence and more tragedy, this time a train wreck. Detective Chief Inspector Louise Morse, who has a thing for Brodie, returns to his life, and a new character appears: Reggie, an orphaned 16-year-old girl with a criminal for a brother and a desire to study for her A-levels even though she has dropped out of school. The characters quote literature (sometimes in Latin), and fabulous turns of phrase abound, but the narrative remains buoyant; it is sprinkled liberally with humorous observations (particularly from Reggie), making each wild turn of events seem like just another bump in the road. A book that will easily stand up to more than one reading; highly recommended for all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/08.]--Nancy Fontaine, Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, NH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A third appearance for former police investigator and private detective Jackson Brodie in this psychologically astute thriller from Atkinson (One Good Turn, 2006, etc.). In the emotional opening, six-year-old Joanna witnesses the brutal killing of her mother and siblings by a knife-wielding madman in the British countryside. Thirty years later, Joanna, now a doctor in Edinburgh, has become a mother herself. Her baby's nanny is 16-year-old Reggie. To Reggie, whose own mother recently died in a freak accident, Joanna and her baby represent an ideal family (Joanna's husband, a struggling businessman, seems only a vaguely irritating irrelevance to fatherless Reggie). When prickly, self-loathing policewoman Louise Monroe comes to call on lovely, warm-hearted Joanna, watchful Reggie (think Ellen Page from Juno with a Scottish brogue) is struck by the similarities between the two well-dressed professional women. Actually Louise has come to warn Joanna that her family's murderer is being released from prison. Louise chooses not to mention her other reason for visiting, a suspicion that Joanna's husband torched one of his failing businesses for the insurance. Jackson's connection to the others is revealed gradually: Jackson and Louise were once almost lovers although they since married others; as a youth Jackson joined the search party that found Joanna hiding in a field following the murders. Rattled after visiting a child he suspects he fathered despite the mother's denials, Jackson mistakenly takes the train to Edinburgh instead of London. When the train crashes near the house where Reggie happens to be watching TV, she gives him CPR. Soon afterward, Joanna's husband tells Reggie that Joanna has gone away unexpectedly. Suspecting foul play, Reggie involves Louise and Jackson in individual searches for the missing woman and baby. While Louise and Jackson face truths about themselves and their relationships, Joanna's survival instincts are once more put to the ultimate test. Like the most riveting BBC mystery, in which understated, deadpan intelligence illuminates characters' inner lives within a convoluted plot. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
