Mystery Scene Review

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
Little Brown, September, 2008

In her new mystery/suspense novel, Kate Atkinson, author of the acclaimed Case Histories and One Good Turn, continues her habit of breaking every writing rule. She annihilates families, right down to the last baby and puppy. She combines Greek myth with nursery rhymes. She employs truckloads of coincidence. She tells her story from disparate points of view, choosing characters who are seemingly unconnected until...

It's that "until" which makes Atkinson's heresies so successful. When Will There Be Good News? begins with the slaughter of the Mason family by a madman, then jumps forward three decades to a time when the memory of the murders has blurred. Atkinson's usual hero, Jackson Brodie, a former British policeman, has inherited loads of money and set himself up as a PI. When he is badly injured in a horrific train derailment, his life is saved via the first aid skills of Reggie, a 16-year-old girl who eventually draws him into a re-investigation of the Mason family tragedy.

With all the heartbreak and gore Atkinson has funneled into Good News, you'd think the book would be a tough read; It's not. The author's trademark dark humor abounds in these pages, and frequently--even in the grisliest of scenes--you find yourself laughing out loud. This is a master work by an author at the very top of her game. In fact, Good News is so extraordinarily on so many levels (especially in its eye-popping ending), that once you're finished, you might--as did I--go right back to the beginning and start over.

- Betty Webb

This review appeared in the Fall 2008 issue (#106) of the magazine