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    Case Histories
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    Case Histories
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    Case Histories
    Ebook363 pages6 hours

    Case Histories

    By Kate Atkinson

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, formar 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.

    Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragendy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realize that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateOct 12, 2010
    ISBN9780385671316
    Unavailable
    Case Histories
    Author

    Kate Atkinson

    Kate Atkinson is the author of a short-story collection, Not the End of the World, and critically acclaimed novels including Life After Life, Human Croquet, Case Histories and One Good Turn. She lives in Edinburgh, UK.

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    Reviews for Case Histories

    4/5

    2,776 ratings201 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Awesome. Next time I will not simultaneously try to read and watch a mystery series, and I might keep case and character notes on an index card. Not sure if it was the overlapping timeline and multiple plots, or the fact I watched the series and was distracted, but I kept having to refresh who was who each chapter.
      Otherwise, the book was great fun, and each case was interesting. You get a lot of depth of emotion, and character development than in the BBC series.
    • 4/5
      The youngest daughter in a family of four vanishes one night. A wife overwhelmed with her new baby rages at her husband, who is dead before the day is through. The daughter of an obese lawyer is murdered on her first day of work at her father's firm. A ninety-year-old widow is missing some of her cats. These are merely some of the mysteries Jackson Brodie, unhappily divorced private eye with a beloved 8-year-old daughter, must solve. Atkinson weaves the fates of her cast of characters as skillfully as an expert quiltmaker, and sprinkles the narrative with a patchwork of colorful lesser characters, all of them expertly embodied. You know these souls as well as you know your own friends (whose mysteries will always bewilder you).

    • 4/5
      Read this after watching the BBC series w/Jason Isaacs (yum), a perfect Jackson Brodie (P.I. once a soldier, then a copper). One of those where both the novel AND the show are good, and I understand the relatively minor changes they made for the screenplay.
      Set in Cambridge (show set in Edinburgh)it is a series of unfinished/cold cases that intertwine as Jackson is hired on to investigate.
      Not forced. My only difficulty was keeping the names of past characters straight - not much to complain about.
      Looking forward to more of the series - both book and BBS/PBS.
    • 3/5
      In Atkinson's inaugural novel in the Jackson Brodie series, the reader is introduced to the eponymous hero, former soldier and police detective, and now a private investigator. In this novel, Brodie is hired to investigate three apparently unrelated cases which occurred in Manchester, England. The first involved the disappearance of a 3-year-old, the youngest, and favorite, of four girls. The second involved the random and seemingly motiveless killing of a solicitor's daughter. The final case involves Brodie locating a daughter that was placed with another family after her mother murdered her husband with an ax. Each one has its challenges with each case not appearing to be what once first assumed. The characters in this novel are so well fleshed out, it is no wonder that the BBC filmed this book as the first of a three part series. After reading the book I'm eager to watch the series and to see how it translated to film.
    • 5/5
      Another absorbing read by Kate Atkinson, consisting of a series of long-ago crimes which slowly intertwine around private eye Jackson Brodie. I don't want to give too much away at all, but will just say I was thoroughly enthralled and once again had a hard time putting it down for much of any reason at all. Well worth a read.
    • 4/5
      #7 of the 10 novels of Kate Atkinson. I've been reading them in the wrong order -- 8, 1, 2, 7, 10, 9, 5 -- but the order doesn't matter. They all work standalone and, indeed, things change from book to book anyway. This is the first of the Jackson Brodie detective stories and I think the later ones are better. Only because the final resolution of this one seemed a bit unsatisfactory and mechanical. Still, she's a fabulous writer. Every page is worthwhile.
    • 3/5
      Liked the writing style - a bit ADHD! Will read more.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this first Jackson Brodie novel. It is well written, humorous and engaging. I look forward to the next installment.
    • 5/5
      Kate Atkinson has that rare gift for description. She can take something so routine and color it with a perfect familiarity so that by the end you're like, "Yes, that's exactly how it is."
    • 2/5
      This is a group of interrelated cold cases (murder and abduction)that involve unlikeable and uninteresting characters in an English community.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed all the characters in this book as they struggled with loss and identity. What I loved was that the obvious explanations were not always the right ones (as in real life).
    • 2/5
      Case Histories, the first Jackson Brodie novel, was Kate Atkinson's first foray out of the world of literary fiction into detective fiction. Unfortunately, it fails very badly as detective fiction.Some of the flaws stem from the heavy "literary" atmosphere Atkinson is building. This is really a novel of character portraits, to the extent that we're about 2/3 of the novel when Jackson Brodie finally begins to work on all three cases, and the extent of his work is calling around to three witnesses.But there are also some elements of this novel that are just inexplicable from any sort of perspective. For example, there's a subplot about a threat on Jackson Brodie's life which seems to come from an airport potboiler. It has no bearing on the plot, and enters into the realm of absurdity for a supposedly realistic novel. (Like trying to assassinate a person by dynamiting his house. Seriously. This is the sort of thing you find in a Road-runner cartoon, not a serious novel).So how is the novel as literary fiction? Well, the above-mentioned stupid subplots have to be glossed over. And you still have to ignore coincidences that would make Dickens blush. And then you're left with a bunch of character sketches that don't really go anywhere, because you've just had to gloss away the little forward motion this novel has.
    • 4/5
      Awesome. Next time I will not simultaneously try to read and watch a mystery series, and I might keep case and character notes on an index card. Not sure if it was the overlapping timeline and multiple plots, or the fact I watched the series and was distracted, but I kept having to refresh who was who each chapter.
      Otherwise, the book was great fun, and each case was interesting. You get a lot of depth of emotion, and character development than in the BBC series.
    • 3/5

      Here's a book that's lots of (often surprisingly smutty) fun, covered in cover quotes that are often the most absolute twaddle. "Few crime novels can lay claim to the depth of character or empathy found in Case Histories," writes Robin Vidimos of the Denver Post, who quite evidently hasn't read too many of the better modern crime novels; I can name a dozen genre practitioners who deploy just as much "depth of character [and] empathy" between now and the time it takes for Vidimos's quote to hit the wall I've just thrown it at. "A wonderfully inventive take on the classic detective novel," contributes Joni Rendon of BookPage; in a curious way that's closer to the mark, but it's still infernally misleading. Joanna Smith Rakoff of Time Out New York adds: "The mysteries are as satisfying as anything dreamed up by Raymond Chandler" . . . which is quite true, but betrays that Rakoff hasn't read her Chandler, whose writing was wonderful but whose plots were sub-par, as indicated in the famous anecdote of the time during the making of the movie of The Big Sleep when Chandler had to admit to director Howard Hawks and scripter William Faulkner that even he didn't know who'd murdered the chauffeur.

      So, what is this novel if it's not what the cover quotes say it is? As her starting point Atkinson takes three murderous crimes that happened long ago (and, as we very much later discover, a fourth) but, rather than using those crimes as the kicking-off point for her current narrative, focuses instead on the seekings for some kind of closure of those who lost (or seemingly lost) loved ones in those crimes: two frowsty middle-aged sisters whose infant sibling was seized many years ago; a father who lost his beloved daughter to a madman with a machete; an aunt who's lost track of her sister's daughter, adopted after the sister slew her husband with an axe. All three/four ask ex-cop PI Jackson Brodie to bring them both absolution and, as noted, closure; in the event it proves that, for various reasons, they're less interested in solutions to the mysteries than in finding some version of it they can live with. Because what the novel isn't about is the mysteries' solutions -- those true solutions are thrown in deliberately as afterthoughts. Rather, it's a set of riffs on the notion that history is (rightly or in my opinion wrongly) what we think it is: we seek not true histories but the histories we feel easy about accepting.

      I laughed aloud a few times while reading this Cambridge-set novel; I certainly for the most part enjoyed it. I was jarred enough by occasional silly coincidences -- was made too aware of the tale's contrivances -- that in the end I wasn't satisfied. But you could say the same about a rollercoaster ride: the journey was fun but, at the end of it, you found yourself at roughly the same place you climbed on.

    • 4/5
      Excellent story! I found it hard to put down, because I was eager to see how the seemingly disparate cases were connected. This book is a mystery story but more than that. The author creates a variety of individual characters whose feelings and motives and experiences are unique and interesting. The theme of loss is important, of course: a lost sibling, a lost child. There are also themes of guilt and responsibility, and the rather uncomfortable idea of not loving people as much as we should (loving one child more than another, not loving your child at all, etc.). Although the story delves into some deep corners, it remains hopeful and has an underlying thread of humor; even though there is tragedy, life still contains comedy.The tale is well told, with the author doling out information a little at a time until the reader finally learns the "truth" behind all of the various mysteries. I understand Atkinson is writing (or has written) other books with the same detective, Jackson Brodie. I'd be interested in reading them; he is a character I enjoyed getting to know.
    • 3/5
      Case Histories by Kate Atkinson; (2 1/2*)I am afraid that this story did not work well for me. I was so interested in the initial 'case history' but lost interest after a bit. Initially I did not even complete the book. But it remained in my head for days and I kept thinking that I must have missed something. So I went back to it and sure enough, I had missed something. The fact that all of these 'case histories' were all tied together in one way or another was the bit that I simply had not 'got'. The story of Olivia being taken at age 3 from her yard by someone/something certainly drew me in. But the other cases got in the way of this storyline for me until I went back to it for a second red. And I was unable to wrap my head around Brody, the investigator on the case some years later. I wish the story had been told in a straight ahead manner and then I think I could have cared.I think Atkinson a very fine writer but her style in this book turned me rather cold on it. In the end I did end up enjoying the book but not the manner in which it was written. Normally a book that bounces back and forth in the lives of the characters nor one where the main characters change for periods of time do not trouble me. With Case Histories, these things did bother me. So I am glad that I returned to the book and completed it but will I go on with the series? Probably not.
    • 4/5
      I didn't really know anything about this book when I grabbed it from a library book sale a couple of years ago, and I didn't really know anything about it before I started reading. I was pleasantly surprised at how engrossing it is - most definitely one of the best books I've read thus far this year.
    • 4/5
      In most mysteries, the characters and events can be far-fetched and hard to believe. Kate Atkinson weaves a story around convincing characters, plausible events, bringing them all to a satisfying conclusion. Jackson Brodie, police detective-turned-private detective is a very appealing character - the reader is immediately on his side. Atkinson will remain at the top of my list of favourite authors.
    • 4/5
      The first three chapters of Case Histories: A Novel are three separate tragedy vignettes, all with unrelated characters. A small child disappears in the night with her stuffed blue mouse. A young woman is gunned down at her father's workplace. There is domestic violence. We then meet Jackson, a detective, and events and players gradually come together and relationships and mysteries come clear. Atkinson keep the tension high as she gradually brings us details of each situation and character. A very good read.
    • 3/5
      2.5 stars, dinged for weird structure, new characters appearing out of nowhere, and irritating prevalence of dogs.
    • 4/5
      Excellent set of long-unsolved mysteries, tied together by the PI, Jackson Brodie. There is the case of littel 3 y/o Olivia, lost some 30 years before, and her now adult sisters, Julia, Amelia, and Shirley (now a cloistered nun); the case of Laura Wyre, slashed to death in her father's office, perhaps by someone looking for her father, Theo... there are others as well.
    • 5/5
      I vacuumed this book up. I thought her characters were well rounded (aided incredibly by their thoughts continually, and often comically, in parentheses) with the possible exception of Marlee. And they were a nice mix. The plot obviously kept me going, wanting to know what happened, and who knew what. Nicely satisfying multiple whodunnit, not overly intellectual, with good emotional connections to the characters. What impressed me most was that I found her style of writing very easy to read, it didn't jar, it didn't feel like it was trying too hard, it just is, it's very natural. I'm sure she has to work hard to make it that easy, but it doesn't come across as overly worked, and I greatly admire her for that. I'll be reading more of her work.
    • 3/5
      This is really a cross-genre kind of book... kind of a mystery, but without the intensity. More literary with better character development. 3 unsolved murder/missing person cases which through one investigator somehow resolve as he's bumping through his own quirky life, surrounded by lovable, yet disturbed characters. The resolutions seem a little far fetched given their long-standing unsolved status, but they make for unexpected turns.
    • 4/5
      The sweet youngest daughter in the family goes missing one hot summer night. A lawyer's teenage daughter is killed in a senseless act of violence at his workplace. A mother goes crazy after the birth of her daughter and goes to jail for killing her husband. What do these three cases have in common? They have all landed on the desk of private investigator Jackson Brodie. Brodie's got problems of his own. His wife has remarried, his precocious daughter is dressing way beyond her years, and the strange cat lady keeps calling. But all the cases are converging and Brodie keeps finding out things the original investigators missed, and now someone wants to end his life too. Funny, strange, and very personal, Atkinson shines light in the dark and funny spaces in her characters' heads.
    • 4/5
      Good writing and a very likeable protagonist, a retired Police Inspector, now PI, working on cold cases.
    • 4/5
      Read from October 18 to 26, 2014I love the way Kate Atkinson tells a story and I loved the mysteries introduced in this novel. Each character is complete, each story slowly unfolds with clever hints for the reader sprinkled throughout, each page moves the story forward. She's just brilliant.Can't wait to get to the next Jackson Brodie book!GraphReading Progress10/19marked as: currently-reading10/19page 44 11.0%"Oh my...make sure the axe is hidden after the baby is born.10/24page 148 38.0%""No woman was ever truly safe.... because wherever you went there were men. Crazy men." Depressingly true."10/26marked as: read
    • 3/5
      I would have given it 4 stars if it wasn't for the ending.

      I really liked this book, with the various intertwining mysteries. However, I didn't like the ending because it didn't solve all the mysteries and left a few things too open for my taste. Also, although the characters are likeable and believable I was never rooting or sympathizing with any them.

      It's the first in the Jackson Brodie series but I don't know if I'm going to get the next.
    • 4/5
      Atkinson books are always a little more than just whatever they are. Detective stories, for example. This one is a Jackson Brodie mystery, but that does not mean it is more of the same. Having the same detective helps a little, because you do not have to explain everything every time, and you can build up your characters to real personalities in several books. Still, it is more difficult if you are a writer, because you cannot repeat yourself, you have to offer puzzle pieces. This mystery is similar: several cases all connect and they do it in a very elegant and natural way at the same time, with her usual sense of humour - very well done once again.
    • 4/5
      This is an unorthodox detective story. The importance is not in the cases themselves but in the parallels between them. Excellent writing, I particularly enjoyed the scene where Amelia loses her virginity. The different points of view are well crafet, although I spent the whole book having to remind myself that Julia and Amelia were in fact the same age as Jackson, rather than 20 years older.This was my first Jackson Brody case, and I decided to read another one immediately afterwards (Started Early, took my dog), which I have to say I am not liking nearly as much as Case histories.
    • 2/5
      Perhaps this was the wrong book for my current mood, or maybe I had too high expectations, but I was disappointed by this first book in the Jackson Brodie series. This was a well-written story but had too much "extraneous" stuff which wasn't interesting to me - interior monologues of various characters unrelated to Brodie's cases. More of a contemporary novel than a mystery IMO.I also found the mysteries unappealing; either not possible for the reader to solve (as in the case of Laura Wyre and Olivia) or fairly easily figured out (as in the case of why Jackson was being attacked, and the fact that Shirley not Michelle was the ax-murderer, with the yellow-haired waif Lily Rose being Tanya {and why are they referring to a 25 year old as a 'girl'?? Deliberate misdirection? Even mentioning Jackson squatting down to talk to her so as not to scare her... all of which gives the impression of a child})