Saturday, October 25, 2008

Case Stories by Kate Atkinson

The story begins at once, and it is exciting. The reader is presented with three different case-files of un-solved mysteries: the case of the little girl Olivia, the case about Michelle and her daughter Tanya and the case about Laura. All cases are years old, and after the presentation, we move forward to the present day, where the ex-cop and ex-soldier Jackson Brodie enters the stage as some kind of a private eye, hired to solve the three old cases. Jackson is a philosofical dreamer, and he is chronically worried about his 8 year old daughter. In his quest of finding answers, not just to the old cases but to life in general, he manages to crack open the three old cases again and get small glimpses of what happened back then. Unfortunately, what promises to be a great story, a great mystery, fade out pretty fast. Jackson seems too philosofical and yet cynic, the disappeared Olivia's three, now grown, sisters seem too cartoon-ish and it is hard to find the rhythm in the story. We also find out the Jackson's cynisims has grounds in his own childhood and upbringing and recent divorce, and it makes the story all the more annoying in this reader's opinion. The story is set in Cambridge in England, and I would have liked a little more atmosphere of the town. The story is not very tight, and what could have been a great book and a great mystery seems lost. All in all, this was a 2* plus book, and I decided to give it 3* on Amazon.

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