Case Histories

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.

Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . .

About the Author

Kate Atkinson was born in York in 1951 and studied English Literature at Dundee University. After graduating in 1974, Kate researched a postgraduate doctorate on American Literature and later taught at Dundee. She began writing short stories in 1981, which extended to writing for women’s magazines after winning the 1986 Woman’s Own short story competition. Since the she has won numerous awards (see below). Kate’s first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Musuem, came in 1995. It’s set in Yorkshire and is narrated by Ruby Lennox who takes the reader through the complex history of her family, covering events of the twentieth century whilst reaching back into the past to uncover the lives of distant ancestors. Since then she produced several novels, all critically acclaimed, enthusiastically reviewed, and much enjoyed my many readers.

It is hard to categorise Kate Atkinson’s work, however it is often described as ‘tragi-comedy’. Her books are exotic and highly entertaining hybrids, frequently incorporating romance, satire, humour, hard-boiled detective fiction, and tolkeinesque sagas, and playing very effectively with shifting time and eccentric characters that feel very real. Some critics see Kate as having developed a new fiction genre: the anti-family saga. Some go as far as to compare them with a well-known Philip Larkin poem, in that her narrators find the first half of their lives ruined by parents and the second half by their children! Certainly in her books she exposes many painful truths often brushed under the carpet of family history, such as infidelity, illegitimacy, violence, sexual abuse, even incest. However, she deals with these meaty issues with humour and her books are wonderful.

Kate Atkinson currently lives in Edinburgh, and is an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines. She has two grown-up daughters.