Contemporary mystery has never really grabbed my attention as a reader. I took a Mystery Story course as an undergraduate and felt that contemporary mystery either was too old-fashioned (very Sherlock Holmes) or very CSI (a TV show I don't watch).
But Case Histories by Kate Atkinson is different. It may be set in England, but it's very contemporary. It doesn't have a sleuth with a magnifying glass nor medical examiners with magical insight. It doesn't make far-fetched connections and that's probably the most satisfying part of reading this book.
Oh right, what is this book ABOUT? Well, there are three "cases" which are introduced in the beginning of the book. One involves a missing little girl, another involves the shooting of an 18 year old woman working at a law firm, and the third is about a wife who splits her husband's head open with an ax. These three cases fall into the lap of Jackson Brodie, a retired investigator who opened his own practice. The novel follows Jackson through his process to investigate these cases, but that's only half the novel. The author also writes chapters to give us wonderfully detailed glipses into the lives of other characters involved in these cases, which move the story along and lets the reader begin to put pieces together. This dramatic irony makes the book exciting from cover to cover!
The suspenseful plot, intricate detailing for each and every character, and smooth writing make this one of the best books I've read in a long, long time. (Perhaps since The Other Boleyn Girl.) The only drawback I saw in this novel was the sheer amount of characters. At one point, I picked up the book after 3 days of an unfortunate non-reading spell, and couldn't remember who certain people were. (These people, by the way, were people that "enhance" your understanding of main characters...and there's a lot of "enhancement characters.")
My rating: 9/10. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this mystery and I think you will, too.
