K.Best known for her Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which were adapted into the BBC television series Case Histories, Kate Atkinson is the author of eleven novels, two plays, and a collection of short stories.

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I can’t say I was particularly bowled over by Atkinson’s writing in terms of literary style but I did enjoy ‘Case Histories’ and look forward to reading ‘Life After Life’ when it becomes available. ‘Case Histories’ is a good read if you are looking for a novel that is neither too challenging nor too light and fluffy. However, I was expecting a more definitive link between the three crimes than there actually turned out to be in the end which was a little disappointing. Overall, Atkinson weaves together the different stories quite nicely so that the chopping and changing between the cases didn’t feel too awkward. Generally, I thought this was a good thing but more emphasis on plot might have strengthened the book as a whole as I thought Case No. Although ‘Case Histories’ is a crime novel, it is the relationships which remain at the heart of it and the story is driven mostly by the characters rather than intricate plot details.

I also liked her character observations and the dry humour in Atkinson’s writing.

These crimes all turn out to be linked – but how?Ītkinson is very good at maintaining suspense particularly when it is later revealed that Jackson has a few dark family secrets of his own which makes the story extra compelling. Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector turned private investigator, is working on t hree apparently separate cold cases in the Cambridge area – the disappearance of a three year old girl in the 1970s, the murder of a solicitor’s daughter and another murder after a domestic incident between husband and wife.

I have reserved ‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson which is currently on order at the library, so just in case I don’t get a chance to read it before the Women’s Prize for Fiction event at the Southbank Centre in June, I thought I would read the first of the Jackson Brodie novels, ‘Case Histories’, to get a feel for Atkinson’s writing.

Kate atkinson jackson brodie novels