Big Sky

April 29, 2019
Atkinson’s slow-moving fifth Jackson Brodie novel (after 2010’s Started Early, Took My Dog) finds the former policeman turned PI, who’s now based on the east coast of Yorkshire, grappling with parenting. Brodie, who endured a traumatic childhood—a mother lost to cancer, a sister murdered, and a brother who committed suicide—shares custody of 13-year-old Nathan Land, who has an “ego big enough to swallow planets whole,” with Nathan’s mother, Julia. Though Brodie has some routine work surveilling a suspected cheating spouse, the action only hits high gear relatively late when he happens upon a man about to jump off a cliff, Vince Ives, whose wife, Wendy, was recently fatally bludgeoned with a golf club. Brodie manages to save Vince’s life, and his look into Wendy’s death involves him in an ugly case of human trafficking. Atkinson has been better at balancing personal and professional story lines, and the presence of a figure from Jackson’s past, now a cop involved in an inquiry looking at establishment figures, won’t resonate for first-timers. Series fans will best appreciate this outing. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Management.

Starred review from May 15, 2019
Jackson Brodie is back. This is Atkinson's fifth Jackson Brodie novel (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011, etc.), but fans know that the phrase "Jackson Brodie novel" is somewhat deceptive. Yes, he is the hero in that he is a private investigator--former cop, military veteran--who solves (usually) mysteries. But he is not so much the central character as the grumpy, anxious, largehearted gravitational field that attracts a motley assortment of lost souls and love interests. In this latest outing, Jackson is a half-duty parent to his teenage son while the boy's mother, an actor, finishes her run on a detective series. Vince Ives is a more-or-less successful middle-class husband and father until his wife leaves him, his boss makes him redundant, and he becomes a murder suspect. Crystal Holroyd--not her real name--has built a brilliant new life for herself, but someone from her past is threatening her daughter. Both Vince and Crystal seek help from Jackson, with varying results. Meanwhile, Jackson's protégée, Reggie Chase, has risen through the ranks in the police force and is taking a fresh look at an old case. That these stories intertwine is a given. "A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen" is one of Jackson's maxims; it could also serve as an ironic epigram for Atkinson's approach to the mystery genre. A small cast of characters collides and careens in a manner that straddles Greek tragedy and screwball comedy. The humor is sly rather than slapstick, and Atkinson is keenly interested in inner lives and motivations. There are villains, certainly--human trafficking and the sexual abuse of children figure prominently here--but even the sympathetic characters are complicated and compromised. Jackson has a strong moral code, but his behavior is often less than ethical. The same is true of Vince, Crystal, and Reggie. The deaths and disappearances that Jackson investigates change with every book, but the human heart remains the central mystery. The welcome return of an existential detective.

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May 24, 2019

Policeman-turned-PI Jackson Brodie has been reduced to chasing cheating husbands and shuttling his teenage son and elderly dog around town. Detective Constables Reggie Chase and Ronnie Dibicki are following up some new leads in a high-level cold case and reinterviewing the original witnesses. Tommy Holroyd, Andy Bragg, and Steve Mellors are involved in human trafficking, and their friend Vince Ives is dealing with losing his job and being the prime suspect in the murder of his soon-to-be ex-wife. When Crystal Holroyd, Tommy's wife, hires Brodie because she thinks she's being followed, the stars align and all of these activities and characters converge. As events unfold, there are several murders, a kidnapping, and lots of threats. Sprinkled throughout are Brodie's musings about love, aging, children, and life. VERDICT This long-anticipated reappearance of fan-favorite Brodie (following 2011's Started Early, Took My Dog) is ultimately disappointing. Brodie takes a backseat throughout and the first half is a jumble of the various characters and their nefarious activities. The minimal action occurs toward the end, and the denouement feels contrived. Brodie has seen better days. [See Prepub Alert, 12/6/18.]--Edward Goldberg, Syosset P.L., NY

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
It's been eight years since Atkinson's last Jackson Brodie mystery (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011), and, while the three historical novels she has written since then?all with some connection to WWII?have been uniformly brilliant, fans of the ever-brooding, painfully tenderhearted private investigator will be thrilled that Brodie is finally back. He's living in a remote cottage near the sea in Yorkshire, but somehow he still finds no shortage of troubled souls washing up around him needing help. It begins with a runaway bride and a sad sack with suicide on his mind, and, from there, Jackson's menagerie of broken-winged creatures leads him into something much darker, something that will thoroughly reinforce his ingrained pessimism. ("Have you ever tried being an optimist?" Jackson's former partner, actress Julia, asks him. "Once," Jackson replies. "It didn't suit me.") Using her signature narrative style, Atkinson not only tells the story from multiple points of view, but also moves back and forth in time, letting us see new sides of an incident from several characters' perspectives. This technique feeds a rich kind of dramatic irony, as we know marginally more than the people in any one scene do, but never quite enough. As the lives of several Yorkshire couples slowly swirl out of control, with the ripples of dysfunction, buried abuse, and tightly held secrets gradually drawing Jackson into their red tide, we marvel at Atkinson's rare ability to create in a relatively few but stunningly deft brushstrokes at least a half-dozen characters with the depth and complexity to own their own novel. Another dazzler from a writer whose talents know no bounds.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Atkinson's blend of literary fiction and crime novel attracts readers in great numbers from both those constituencies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)