Case Histories
Published 2004
Read Jan 2025
One Good Turn
Published 2006
Read March 2025
When Will There Be Good News
Published 2008
Read May 2026
Started Early Took My Dog
Published 2010
Read May 2026
Big Sky
Published 2019
Read May 2026
Death at the Sign of the Rook
Published 2024
Read June 2026
Books 1-6 of the Jackson Brodie series
By Kate Atkinson
Putting these books together for a single essay does not indicate they are all alike or that they are lightweight in any regard. Rather they are NOT lightweight, and the stories are all quite different. And as you can see by the “read” dates, this reader has been reading versus writing!
This reader managed to start with the first in the series quite by accident. This reader had enjoyed Behind the Scenes at the Museum and needed an audiobook to read so this reader tried another Kate Atkinson novel noted as part of the Jackson Brodie series. However, in this book, as with many of the books in the series, running into Jackson Brodie takes quite some time/pages.
Jackson Brodie is a former police detective and former member of the army. He is now using his highly honed investigative skills in private practice. In some of these books he’s been hired to investigate something. In other books he gets involved in cases nearly accidentally. In all cases, he is quite knowledgeable about police protocol but doesn’t necessarily follow it. In some cases, he quite blatantly misleads the police regarding what happened to protect one or more people who stumbled into committing a crime and whom he thinks shouldn’t be prosecuted. Generally, this reader agreed with his decisions and found them refreshing.
As mentioned, Jackson Brodie often arrives in the story quite far into the book. Something characteristic of all these books is that the reader must be patient for the story, or usually stories, to unfold during which time characters are introduced, crimes may be committed or not, story webs become tangled, and the reader becomes thoroughly involved. If you’re looking for a straightforward power through read, these are not books for you! Eventually Jackson Brodie arrives and somehow gets involved.
There are a few characters that show up in several books. We meet Julia initially in Case Histories as a young girl whose youngest sister disappears. Jackson Brodie gets involved a few decades later in that book, helps solve the mystery, and by the end of the book there is a connection developing between Jackson and Julia. In later books Julia is a girlfriend (One Good Turn), as an ex-girlfriend (several books) or as part of a chorus of women in Jackson’s head (several books). Teen-aged Reggie saves Jackson Brodie’s life following a train wreck in When Will There Be Good News and ends up involved with him in other parts of this book. Jackson Brodie encounters Constable Reggie in two later books when both of them are older. Louise Monroe appears in several books as well, sometimes as a pivotal character, sometimes in a supporting role but there is always a little electricity between her and Jackson Brodie that the reader hopes will ignite. Across the books she rises in position in the police force.
Most of the stories cover many years, often decades. There is some to and fro of time setting, sometimes between the early and late parts of these stories, sometimes between times differing in only a few weeks. It’s easy to follow even when listening to audiobooks (the format this reader used for all of the books).
Just as the stories within a given book take time to be reeled out, they generally take awhile to be wound up as well. Patience from the reader is well rewarded, however. It’s clear that this reader became quite drawn to the series: a few months lapsed between reading the first and second books, nearly a year until the third book, then followed by rapid digestion of the last three. This reader was lucky as these books were published over a twenty-year period. This reader hopes that the next installment appears on the horizon within the 2020’s but it’s not a given as this author finds many other interesting things to write. So, this reader will likely investigate (pun intended) some of these Kate Atkinson book next.
MarshaReads.com 