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Case Histories (2004) is a detective novel by British author Kate Atkinson and is set in Cambridge, England. Barry tells Jackson exactly what happened when Carol was murdered, leading Jackson to work out who killed her. Enter Jackson Brodie – ex-army and-ex police and with a ton of baggage regarding his ex-wife, his eight-year-old daughter, to say nothing of the tragedy of his childhood. She was her mother's least favourite child and is described even in adulthood as being unfortunate and gawky to look at.
Only Atkinson can bring these strands together, not in a tidy way, but like a rough tapestry overlapping strands to make a beautiful whole. The book has sold well, and has some excellent reviews - so I guess it's me that is in the minority. She makes up an imaginary boyfriend, 'Henry', just to get nosy family members and colleagues off her back about her lack of a love life. As always Atkinson deserves a medal for characterisation and snappy dialogue, while the plot is pacy enough, once you get used to the constantly shifting narrative points of view. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm is a cast of characters and a setting that even Agatha Christie might recognize – a vicar, an Army major, a Dowager, a sleuth and his sidekick – except that the sleuth is Jackson Brodie, and the ‘sidekick’ is DC Reggie Chase.
Coupled with his conflicts with his ex-wife, Jackson starts to become paranoid, and more convinced that the cases he's working on are connected. This technique is played out to heartbreaking effect in the character of Tilly Squires, who plays Collier’s mum in Collier. Paula Hawkins, the author of The Girl on the Train, tagged him as “marvelously melancholy” and that about nails it. Cystal meets an old friend from her murky past and finds her early story is also connected with what her her husband Tommy and friends were doing. The second case involves Theo, a morbidly obese, middle-aged man who is unable to move on from his beloved daughter Laura's seemingly random murder in 1994.
Atkinson has a very clever way of ending her novels without all the loose ends tied up – an issue that mentioned in a negative light in a lot of her reviews. He visits the case officer, Tracy Waterhouse, now a security guard who has illegally taken in Courtney, the silent child of another prostitute, the latest victim of a serial killer.Jackson had never felt at home in Cambridge, never felt at home in the south of England if it came to that. A woman next to her murdered-with-an-ax husband in her kitchen; a child who vanished from her backyard; a man’s daughter murdered at his office.
Young Russian women feature in all the story threads, one way or another, and the eventual connection between these threads is appropriately symbolised by the recurring image of Russian dolls. That day, her husband had walked in and managed to wake Dayna just after she had finally gone to sleep, sending Michelle over the edge. Jackson discovers that Isobel was less than the golden girl suggested by her public image before working out how she die As well as the Jackson Brodie series, Kate has published various other novels, a play, and a collection of short stories. These have always been novels about character, and there are enough moments of tenderness between parents and children to balance out the cruelty inflicted on the young.Sylvia finally discloses the location of Olivia's body, which was buried in Binky's garden, although omits that she in fact murdered her, so she would remain a pure child of God and not be molested by their father. There are critics of this style, with reviews commenting that there’s a focus on character above plot. Two more cases hit Jackson’s books at the same time: a grieving man haunted by the murder of his daughter ten years before; a woman who has lost touch with the niece she promised to look out for when her sister was arrested for killing her husband. Honda Man is a great oversized brute of a man, and he emerges from the Honda with a baseball bat and goes berserk. It’s either endearing or irritating, depending on how competent or human you want your detective to be.
Throughout this distressing time, Theo finds some paternal comfort in giving money to a young homeless woman, Lily-Rose, whom he walks past each day and interacting with Jackson's eight-year-old daughter Marlee, who has to accompany him at work.The very youngest, Olivia, sleeps in a tent in the garden as a treat, with Amelia, one of her sisters, and disappears in the night never to be seen again. He is also talked into helping a grieving father find the man who murdered his daughter, and tracking down the niece of a mysterious seductress.
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