Another re-read, though only after a dozen years (and four sequels), back to where the Jackson Brodie novels began in 2005.
Ex-DI Brodie, newly separated from wife, Josie, and daughter, Marlee, is grubbing a living as a private investigator, mainly checking out partners of suspicious wives and husbands. In addition there are the continual demands of Binky Rain, the old lady with so many cats there is always one lost for Jackson to hunt down, which he tolerates as it pays the bills.
But then three cold cases come calling: an abduction of a toddler from 1970; an unsolved murder of a young woman in 1992; and a missing person (the daughter of an axe-murder convicted in 1979).
As we, the reader, are given snatches of each backstory, Jackson must trawl old evidence and look for gaps in the original investigations in the hope of finding a new lead. Slowly, the truths emerge, only to give Jackson some moral dilemmas to resolve.
However the strength of the book is not the crime-solving but the characters created, the relationships between them, and Jackson’s internal monologue and dry wit.
Good to be reminded
of how it all began and, as ever with Kate Atkinson, an enjoyable read.
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