When Will There Be Good News?

Starred review from July 28, 2008
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.

Starred review from August 15, 2008
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

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2008
Inthe thirdnovel in her Jackson Brodie series and what may be thebest entry yet, Atkinson offersanother fascinating glimpse into her dark worldview. The novel opens with a horrificscene as six-year-old Joanna Mason watches a maniac slice up her mother, sister, and baby brother. Thirty years later, the killer isreleased on parole, and Joanna, now an Edinburgh GP with a baby of her own, has gone missing, but onlyJoannasnanny, 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. Reggiesaves his lifeandthenasks Jackson to saveJoanna and her baby.In Atkinsons world, the most vulnerable are easy prey (In some Utopian nowhere, women walked without fear), but themayhem is offset bythe expansiveness of her singularnarrative 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)