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Summary
Summary
The third installment in Kate Atkinson's wildly beloved series of Jackson Brodie Mysteries: a complex tale of murder, coincidence, and connected lives.
On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...
On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound...
At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency...
These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest novel from Kate Atkinson, the critically acclaimed author who Harlan Coben calls "an absolute must-read."
"As a reader, I was charmed. As a novelist, I was staggered by Kate Atkinson's narrative wizardry." -- Stephen King
Author Notes
Kate Atkinson was born in York, and studied English Literature at the University of Dundee. She earned her Masters Degree from Dundee in 1974. She then went on to study for a doctorate in American Literature but she failed at the viva (oral examination) stage. After leaving the university, she took on a variety of jobs from home help to legal secretary and teacher. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year ahead of Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins's biography of William Ewart Gladstone. It went on to be a Sunday Times bestseller.
Since then, she has published another five novels, one play, and one collection of short stories. Her work is often celebrated for its wit, wisdom and subtle characterisation, and the surprising twists and plot turns. Her most recent work has featured the popular former detective Jackson Brodie. In 2009, she donated the short story Lucky We Live Now to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Atkinson's story was published in the 'Earth' collection. In March 2010, Atkinson appeared at the York Literature Festival, giving a world-premier reading from an early chapter from her forthcoming novel Started Early, Took My Dog, which is set mainly in the English city of Leeds.
Atkinson's bestselling novel, Life after Life, has won numerous awards, including the COSTA Novel Award for 2013. The follow-up to Life After Life is A God in Ruins and was published in 2015. This title won a Costa Book Award 2015 in the novel category.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. 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. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.