Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (amazon)

I bring sweetness and light everywhere I go.

I’ve gotten so much better about not packing a half dozen books when I travel. Instead, I will usually take 2 or 3 books, and then buy something at the airport bookstore. That actually might not better than packing a bunch of books. I hadn’t read Case Histories when it first came out, but I remember enjoying Atkinsons first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, so I snagged this while I was hanging out at the airport. Case Histories seems a little bit like a fusion of a thriller or detective novel and literary fiction. It centers around the stories of lost girls and women and the families that are left behind. A three year old girl disappears out of her backyard, a teenager is suddenly killed, and a woman caring for her baby seems to suddenly go insane. These stories take place at different points in time, but they are bound together by relationships between many of the characters and the detective Jackson Brodie. Atkinson manages to be both humorous and optimistic when she’s telling stories of the worst kinds of family dysfunction. I’m glad that her next novel is also going to feature Jackson Brodie, because I’m curious to find out what happens to him. I always like novels told from multiple points of view, and Atkinson weaves in multiple perspectives from all her characters until the mysteries are solved.