Case Histories
Review of the novel by Kate Atkinson (#1 in the Jackson Brodie series)
This is #1 of the Jackson Brodie mystery series. I read #2 first. While the books can stand alone, you would better appreciate the development of continuing characters if you read them in sequence. And the odds are that you’ll want to read all four in the series.
From the beginning, the quirky character descriptions caught my interest:
“… Victor was the first man Rosemary had ever been kissed by (albeit awkwardly, lunging at her like an elephant seal).” p. 23
And her observations about life sometimes seems like a description of her writing style:
Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and one and on.” p.65
The confusion, the messiness, the outrageous coincidences draw you in and get you totally entangled. You have to keep reading to figure out what is going on and why, and then you have to immediately pick up the next book in the series.
