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  • Published: 1 June 2005
  • ISBN: 9780552772433
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $26.00

Case Histories

(Jackson Brodie)




The first Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning, number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription.

The first Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning, number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription.

'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

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.

Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected...

  • Published: 1 June 2005
  • ISBN: 9780552772433
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Costa Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her three critically lauded and prizewinning novels set around World War II are Life After Life, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award), and Transcription. She was appointed MBE for services to literature in 2011.

Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie returns in her new novel Big Sky.

Also by Kate Atkinson

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Praise for Case Histories

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

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 detailed and unexpectedly funny

Mirror

Civilised, funny, life-affirming and hugely enjoyable

Literary Review

Brilliantly playful, witty and original... massive and consistent talent for comedy

The Scotsman

Perceptive and engaging

Independent

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)

Murder, mystery and Atkinson's skill make for an atmospheric and moving story

Eve

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)

Funny, furious fourth novel rumbustiously drives a path through the genre of detective fiction, demolishing its careful, forensic summation of human behaviour and replacing them with bloody, believable, vigorous tales

Rachel Cusk

Vivid, multifaceted... Case Histories manages to be such an ultimately joyful novel.. I found myself captivated throughout by the vivacity and big-hearted humour... skilled juxtaposition

WBQ

Not just the best novel I have read this year...but the best mystery of the decade. There are actually four mysteries, nesting like Russian dolls, and when they begin to fit together, I defy any reader not to feel a combination of delight and amazement. Case Histories is the literary equivalent of a triple axel. I read it once for pleasure and then again just to see how it was done. This is the kind of book you shove in people's faces, saying 'You gotta read this!

Entertainment Weekly