One of our Great Reads you may have missed in 2011.
February 2011 Book of the Month.
Shortlisted for the Galaxy UK Author of the Year 2010. Another outing for Jackson Brodie in Atkinson's next crime novel. She seems to really be getting in to her stride with this series and as each book can be read as a stand alone has not tied herself down to any set rules, but then when does she ever? Told with all her usual quirkiness and entertaining characters this is another must read.
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished. Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains. Started Early, Took My Dog is freighted with wit, wisdom and a fierce moral intelligence. It confirms Kate Atkinson's position as one of the great writers of our time.
Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and has been a critically acclaimed writer ever since. Her four bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs. Her latest novel Life After Life was shortlisted for several prestigious literary prizes including the Women’s (formerly Orange) and the Costa Novel Prize. She was appointed MBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh.
