BOOK REVIEW: Case Histories

British author Kate Atkinson is hard to put into a genre. My guess would probably be "literary detective, mystery with touches of dark humor". If such a catagory does not exsist, it should.

CASE HISTORIES opens with the disappearance of three-year-old Olivia. Olivia was the youngest of four daughters and the favorite of their mother. Their father ignored all four of them. The novel jumps to Laura Wyre's murder by an apparent madman while she is working at her father's law office. The next person we meet is Michelle, the mother of an infant and living on an isolated farm. Michelle snaps and we leave her sitting on the floor holding an axe beside her murdered husband.

Several years later Jackson Brodie, ex-policeman now in private practice, is approached by three different people, each with a relationship to the victim in these cold cases.

Two of Olivia's sisters have found a clue that makes them want Brodie to look into the whereabouts of the sister whose body has never been found. It has been 35 years since her disappearance and the recent death of their father has brought a new twist to their case.

Laura Wyre's father has been obbsessed with finding his daughter's murderer. For the ten years since her death, he has been working on his own to solve what appeared to be a randon act of violence. Now he is getting older, his health is bad and he feels that Brodie can help.

Shirley Morrison is Michelle's sister. She does not want help concerning the murder;she wants Brodie to find her now twenty-five -year-old niece.

Kate Atkinson is a master of the non-linear story line. It is the appearance of Jackson Brodie that pulls these three stories together. It seems that the only thing that they have in common is Brodie himself. Each story does come to a conclusion. Maybe not one that purists would approve of, but a conclusion just the same.

This is an author who will not appeal to every reader. She takes what could be a straightforward story and adds twists and turns that do not always make sense at the time and leads the reader into surprising territory. I like the fact that she gives that reader the compliment of taking for granted that he or she will keep up. She never writes down to her audience.

Jackson Brodie appears in several later books by Atkinson. CASE HISTORIES gives us a view of his own history and he is an old friend when we meet him again. This is an author that stays on my regular look - for - list.