BOOK REVIEW: Started Early, Took My Dog

Allow me to set the scene for Kate Atkinson’s STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG. 

 

In 1975, rookie policewoman, Tracy Waterhouse and her partner Ken Arkwright knock down a door in a shoddy apartment building to find a youngster alone with a decomposing body. 

 

Thirty years later, retired Tracy is working as a security guard in a large shopping mall. She watches a little girl being horribly mistreated and ends up buying the child.

Also a witness to the child’s mistreatment is Matilda, an actress currently playing the mother on a popular television show and suffering from early stages of dementia. Tilly has problems remembering her lines for the show, but can quote passages from the plays that she had done in her youth.

Private eye Jackson Brodie has been hired by a woman living in New Zealand to find her natural parents. While walking through a park he rushes to protect a small dog being abused by a large man. As a result, Jackson ends up with a small friend that he has to hide in his bag in order to get the animal into hotel rooms.

It is to Kate Atkinson’s credit that these stories all come together. That is not to say that all problems are successfully solved at the end, but we have learned so much about what really happened back in that apartment thirty years ago.

This was my second suspense novel by Kate Atkinson and there will be more. Her books are full of characters that I want to know more about and her plots are full of twists that are not usually found in your run of the mill whodunits.

I love her style of writing. She has a literary feel that never condescends to her reader. Tilly especially makes use of quotes that are appropriate, sometimes off the wall but fitting. I am flattered that the author did not feel obligated to explain the sources to me. Because the author and the setting are British, there were references that I did not “get”, but that did not slow the story for me.

Jackson Brodie is a reacurring character in Atkinson novels, but the books are not really a series. It is not necessary to read them in order, but I plan to pick up the earlier ones because Jackson is so intriguing.

If the title sounds familiar to you, it is also the title of a poem by Emily Dickinson. It is the perfect choice for this book. One reviewer said that “… my brain starts fizzing like a glass of bubbly even before I crack the cover”. I could not agree more. Treat yourself to this literate, witty, intelligent author.