Case Histories: (Jackson Brodie)

Description

A major event: a new novel by the Whitbread winner, her first novel since Emotionally Weird, and probably her most commercial book yet. 'Investigating other people's tragedies and cock-ups and misfortunes was all he knew. He was used to being a voyeur, the outsider looking in, and nothing, but nothing, that anyone did surprised him any more. Yet despite everything he'd seen and done, inside Jackson there remained a belief - a small, battered and bruised belief - that his job was to help people be good rather than punish them for being bad.' Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. He is forty-five but feels much, much older. He is at that dangerous age when men suddenly notice that they're going to die eventually, inevitably, and there isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life is brought sharply into focus. Ingeniously plotted, full of suspense and heartbreak, CASE HISTORIES is a feat of bravura storytelling that conveys the mysteries of life, its inanities and its hilarities. It is a life-affirming work of profound insight and intelligence.

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her four bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs. Her 2013 novel Life After Life won the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize, voted Book of the Year for the independent booksellers associations on both sides of the Atlantic. It also won the Costa Novel Award, as did her new novel A God in Ruins (2015). She was appointed MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List, and was voted Waterstones UK Author of the Year at the 2013 Specsavers National Book Awards.

Her best book yet, an astonishingly complex and moving literary detective story that made me sob but also snort with laughter. It's the sort of novel you have to start rereading the minute you've finished it * Guardian * Sharp humour, together with a number of unexpected twists makes this a typically pacey and intelligent read * Daily Mail * A greedy feast of a story by a masterful author...A profound, exciting and lingering read * Daily Express * Triumphant...Her best book yet...A tragi-comedy for our times * Sunday Telegraph * To read it is to enter a hall of mirrors...Part complex family drama, part mystery, it winds up having more depth and vividness than ordinary thrillers and more thrills than ordinary fiction...A wonderfully tricky book * New York Times * As satisfying as anything dreamed up by Raymond Chandler, but the beauty of the novel lies in its spot-on characterizations, pitch perfect observations of contemporary culture and a sharp, wisecracking narrative voice * Time Out * Shot through with sharp, black humour, and introducing a loveable hero in Brodie, this is storytelling that satisfies at every level * Marie Claire (Book of the Month) * Atkinson is very good indeed... more satisfying than many detective novels. Everyone who picks it up will feel compelled to follow it through to the last page * Guardian * Brilliantly playful, witty and original... massive and consistent talent for comedy * The Scotsman * Intriguing and affecting... she has also created a compelling central chracter in world-weary private investigator Jackson Brodie, who is determined to bring justice to all the lives that lie fractured around him * Red (Book of the Month) *