Joanna Mason’s mother, sister and baby
brother were killed in a senseless attack when she was just six years old. She
escaped unscathed and thirty years later is living happily in Edinburgh with a nice
but dim husband and small baby. But thirty years was Andrew Decker’s sentence
and now he is out.
It falls to DCI Louise Monroe to let Joanna
know. The policewoman has got married since her previous outing in “One Good
Turn”, but still broods on what might have been with Jackson Brodie (ex-army,
ex-police, ex-private eye and current uncomfortably well-off man of leisure).
He too has moved on in marital terms if not emotionally, with a new wife and a
possible son from the previous relationship.
Brodie’s trip to Yorkshire, to
surreptitiously gain a DNA sample from the potential son, propels him northward
by train to crash back into Louise Monroe’s personal and professional life.
Added to the mix is sixteen year-old Reggie
Chase, Joanna’s ‘mother’s help’ devoted to her and the baby but struggling to
cope with a ravaged home life. And there is Joanna’s dog – Sadie the German
shepherd.
Atkinson does what she does better than most
– developing interweaving plot lines with such ease that the complexity is
hardly noticed until a connection is made with a satisfying “ahh” from the
reader. It’s not just the plot though; characters are interesting and engaging,
with well-articulated opinions and emotions. Sardonic humour and social comment
are blended in seamlessly.
It gets serious though when Joanna goes
missing with the baby. Has she run, has she been taken, is her husband not so nice
after all? We are kept guessing on that and the many subplots right to the end,
when the book is closed to a final, satisfying, spine-tingling link.
Just excellent.
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