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Case One: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case Two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case Three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.
In the brilliant new literary thriller by the award-winning author of Case Histories, Jackson Brodie, adored single-dad detective, is caught in a web of mystery following a grisly attack in the street. Two years after the events of Case Histories, which left him a retired millionaire with an occasional girlfriend in Julia, a former client, Jackson has followed her to Edinburgh for its famous summer festival.
A God in Ruins tells the dramatic story of the 20th century through Ursula's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather - as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have.
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal.... For team leader Rachael Lambert, the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide....
At the Man with a Load of Mischief, they found the dead body stuck in a keg of beer. At the Jack and Hammer, another body was stuck out on the beam of the pub’s sign, replacing the mechanical man who kept the time. Two pubs. Two murders. One Scotland Yard inspector called in to help. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury arrives in Long Piddleton and finds everyone in the postcard village looking outside of town for the killer - except for one Melrose Plant....
Case One: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case Two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case Three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.
In the brilliant new literary thriller by the award-winning author of Case Histories, Jackson Brodie, adored single-dad detective, is caught in a web of mystery following a grisly attack in the street. Two years after the events of Case Histories, which left him a retired millionaire with an occasional girlfriend in Julia, a former client, Jackson has followed her to Edinburgh for its famous summer festival.
A God in Ruins tells the dramatic story of the 20th century through Ursula's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather - as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have.
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal.... For team leader Rachael Lambert, the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide....
At the Man with a Load of Mischief, they found the dead body stuck in a keg of beer. At the Jack and Hammer, another body was stuck out on the beam of the pub’s sign, replacing the mechanical man who kept the time. Two pubs. Two murders. One Scotland Yard inspector called in to help. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury arrives in Long Piddleton and finds everyone in the postcard village looking outside of town for the killer - except for one Melrose Plant....
The producer of a troubled play invites the cast to spend the weekend in his remote Scottish Highlands estate to hash out the problems. When the housemaid finds the playwright murdered in bed, Thomas Lynley and his partner must unmask the villain.
Maisie Dobbs isn't just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence - and the patronage of her benevolent employers - she works her way into college at Cambridge. After the War I and her service as a nurse, Maisie hangs out her shingle back at home: M. DOBBS, TRADE AND PERSONAL INVESTIGATIONS. But her very first assignment soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.
Anna Fox lives alone - a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times...and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble. And its shocking secrets are laid bare.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery.
In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal. Nearly 30 years later, Hugo's estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father's funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.
The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. Even for a seasoned professional, the series of mutilation sex murders is unlike anything he's encountered before. But profiling the psychopath is not beyond him. Hill's own past has made him the perfect man to comprehend the killer's motives. It's also made him the perfect victim. A game has begun for the hunter and the hunted.
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the best-selling crime writer for years, she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan's traditional formula has proved hugely successful.
When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path. But one of the women doesn't come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened. Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker.
Stavern, 1983. After a brutal robbery, a young policeman named William Wisting is edged off the investigation by more experienced officers, but soon he is on another case that has not even been recognised as murder. Forgotten in a dilapidated barn stands a bullet-riddled old car, and it looks as if the driver did not get out alive. This case will shape William Wisting as a policeman and give him insight that he will carry with him for the rest of his career.
Welcome to the Misfit Mob... It's where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can't get rid of but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it's his job to find out which museum it's been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting.
In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale, we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology, and the elliptical nature of time. Written with energy and wit, this is a story of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.
Hard-boiled with a heart of gold what more do you want in a private eye? But Jackson Brodie, in Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog, is no stereotypical gumshoe. For one thing, the Yorkshireman reads Emily Dickinson, quoted in the novel’s title. A recurrent character in previous Atkinson novels, Brodie here shares a plot with the equally compelling Tracy Waterhouse, a retired Police Superintendent turned mall cop.
Atkinson’s wonderfully woven tale features more complex and credible characters than are often found in the murder mystery genre. And narrator Graeme Malcolm realizes them with pitch-perfect, understated brio befitting the grief, longing, jadedness, and cautious joy they variously express. While the characters all possess been-around-the block, self-mocking voices, Malcolm, while making each personality distinct, conveys the raw and secret sorrow that’s within them all underneath the cynicism.
Early in the story, Tracy acts on a radical impulse. Middle-aged and single, she takes a child actually purchases one from a criminal and abusive mother. Handing the mother a wad of cash intended for home renovations in exchange for a bedraggled 4-year-old girl, Tracy begins a fugitive life, instantly, unsentimentally mothering on the fly. She’s pursued, but not, as she assumes, for kidnapping, but because years earlier she investigated the murder of a prostitute before superiors took the case from her. That case featured the first of the novel’s many ‘lost children’: the prostitute’s son.
This same crime draws Brodie’s interest on behalf of a client seeking her biological mother. Forever haunted by the murder of his sister when he was a child, Brodie is aware of his penchant for lost girls and the women they have become, both professionally and in his failed marriages.
Meanwhile, there is a third central character, the elderly, increasingly senile actress, Tilly Squires, playing her last role on a TV soap and still mourning the baby she aborted decades ago, while under the spell of a rival actress ‘friend’. Malcolm movingly and without melodrama takes us afloat her streams of consciousness and stumblings for elusive words and wallets.
Atkinson’s plot threads back and forth between the 1970s and the present; Malcolm agilely indicates time changes with the subtlest of pauses and inflections. Shepherding us through the unraveling of the mystery, he lets us experience the palpable sense Atkinson conveys of the profound, unremitting consequences born of an abandoned or neglected child. But in the end, we also feel, as Dickinson notes, that hope can be “heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea”. Elly Schull Meeks
Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective - a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other - or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly.
Suddenly burdened with a small child, Tracy soon learns her parental inexperience is actually the least of her problems, as much larger ones loom for her and her young charge.
Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie, the beloved detective of novels such as Case Histories, is embarking on a different sort of rescue - that of an abused dog. Dog in tow, Jackson is about to learn, along with Tracy, that no good deed goes unpunished.
Kate Atkinson does a great job of combining the foibles of human behavior, irony, humor, all wrapped up in a mystery....couldn't be a better package. And the narrator, Mr. Malcolm does s superb job telling the story with a wry humor evident in his voice. A great pleasure, and I don't say that too often!
9 of 9 people found this review helpful
Kate Atkinson has once again written one of the most interesting and touching novels I have been entertained by in a long time. Saving a child and a dog are only the tip of this tale which weaves its heartfelt story with well developed characters you care about even with their many flaws. A mystery, a love story, a story of redemption- I recommend this book whole heartedly.
40 of 44 people found this review helpful
Well this is the sort of book that will keep you up listening way too late at night and most likely making sure you have pockets to hold the player as you go about your day. I listened almost nonstop. I have loved each book in this four book series. Maybe this last installment being my favorite. Just know that each book fits together perfectly, building upon the last and snapping together--each as a piece in a large jigsaw puzzle.
Much of this story takes place in Yorkshire. It was an added treat for me as I have rented the National Trust house for a week years ago at Fountains Abbey where some of the action takes place. To me, Atkinson captured that location beautifully, it was like being there again.
Be aware that Atkinson tackles difficult topics in this book--which becomes a time bending look at people at risk in society and those meant to help. Police, private investigators,social service, actresses, children and dogs all play vital roles.
This is the last book in the series (so far) and I know Atkinson has been interviewed about the possibility of a fifth book and she has said no. While I would love to hear more from Jackson Brodie and hope she continues, I can understand. If I view the series as a whole--seeing the puzzle picture as I stand back--I think I can fill in the missing bits. It all makes sense.
I am so glad I stumbled on Atkinson and her writing. She is a gem. This is a series not to be missed if you love complex literate mysteries with depth. Fantastic.
31 of 34 people found this review helpful
I downloaded this book as a filler in until I got my next credits, and chose it strictly for its quirky title. (I never heard of the author.) I hoped it would be a good listen, and I wasn't disappointed. The characters are well formed and real, not ultra glamourous, as they have been in some of the books I've listened to recently. The plot held my interest throughout. It also had that real effect. It was a story that could plausibly happen to any of us, and kept me listening to find out how everything would turn out in the end. The narrator's British accent threw me off at first, only because I had to listen just a tad bit closer to understand the words. Once I got used to it, I found his voice smooth and delightful to listen to. I look forward to listening to another one of Ms. Atkinson's books. This one deserves all five stars.
20 of 22 people found this review helpful
Calling it a murder mystery really does an injustice to this story. The story is so complex and multi-layered, you won't be able to stop listening. The multiple plot lines weave and intersect the past with the present. It's not a casual listen, as you must be constantly alert to which time line and plot you are following. The characters are so well-developed and real, you feel like they could pop into reality at any second. This is a very enjoyable listed, and the narrator's accents add to the ambiance of the story. I'm going to search out some more books by this author and narrator.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful
I had a bit of trouble getting things straight at the beginning of this novel, but as the story progressed I couldn't stop listening (got a lot of dishes washed!). The narrator was fabulous - with subtle character differences and a dry tone that had me laugh out loud in places. I found the characters believable and -not appealing, really, but I could like them and have compassion for them. The little girl was worth the price of the book. A crazy scene at the climax of the plot, with enough denouement to give a good sense of closure. I bought it for the title, but will go back and listen again for the quality. Looking forward to "reading" more of Atkinson's work.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful
Wow! I was not expecting this. I thought this would be a cute little mystery. It turned out to be a complex book with a terrific plot and clever characters. The narrator is perfect for the book. I had to listen to it twice just so I could see how Kate Atkinson had pulled it off. Excellent use of a credit for me. Remarkably entertaining.
15 of 17 people found this review helpful
I, as another review did, got this book on a whim, and because I liked the title. I'm a sucker for dog stories, and if the word "Dog" is in the title, I will definitely check it out. This story follows two people who have, through some buried, previously unaknowledged, unfulfilled desires, acquired dependents that alter the course of their lives. The first is a man, a detective, who becomes the owner of a small dog, a Border Terrier. The other is a woman, a retired policewoman, who - in action completely outside of her previous experience- impulisvely "buys" a 5 year old girl from a preoccupied prostitute. Both of these characters must learn to live with and care for their new charges, and while they do not know each other, their lives become entwined by the course of events both past and present. At the heart of this story is a murder mystery, the circumstances of which unfold, curling back into time as the lives of the two main charaters hurtle forward. Other characters appear and become entangled in the plot as well, and the whole thing becomes a giant soup of chance meetings and twisted connections that are just as strange as real life. I really enjoyed the ride this story took me on, and loved all the characters I encountered. The only thing I never learned, as all the loose ends tied up, was why the book was titled as it was. Still, it is great fun, and Graeme Malcom is a terrific reader.
15 of 17 people found this review helpful
There aren't many books I would care to listen to again, but long before it was over - I knew I'd want to hear it again.
The stories of the characters are unraveled and re-woven with subtle twists that allow you to be come a secret witness to events and inside participant to the story!
The narrator's voice was perfect pairing to the author's tone of understated humor & intelligence in the story telling.
Kudos to Tilly! I will miss her the most.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
I hadn't read any of Kate Atkinson's books before but I liked this title and the description sounded interesting. I wouldn't have downloaded this book if I'd realized it was part of a series. The book was a lot darker than I thought it would be. Most of the characters I had to work at liking, they were pretty jaded with life. However, the writing was good and the reader was fine. I liked it enough to download the first novel containing these characters, hoping to understand how they got to where they were emotionally in this book.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful