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Mar 13, 2009

karen rated it:

so when i heard kate atkinson had a new book i thought yayyy. and then when i found out it was another jackson brodie novel i said boooo. i thought the first one was great, but the second was a lot weaker. theres a reason i tend not to read genre fiction like sci fi and mystery - because i just dont want to commit to ten books about the same world. i would rather read one book that is self-contained and never visit the characters again.(and yes i know - harington is exempt from this preference b More...

9 comments like (28 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2008

Michael rated it:

While walking home one day, six-year-old Joanna Mason's family is attacked and killed by a man wielding a butcher knife. Joanna escapes by fleeing into a cornfield and hiding. She's eventually found and the killer is caught and sent to jail.

Now before you get upset with me for revealing too much, let me just say that all of what I described above happens in the first twenty or so pages of Kate Atkinson's latest novel "When Will There Be Good News?" The death of Joanna's More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2008

Mark rated it:

Kate Atkinson returns to form in the third book in her Jackson Brodie series. With her usual mix of strong mystery plot elements and finely drawn relationships, "When Will There Be Good News" fairly hums along, and it works even better in this case because Jackson Brodie, the former cop turned private eye turned rich pensioner, is not actually the centerpiece of this novel.

If there is a hero and fulcrum of this book, it is the wonderful new character of Reggie Chase, More...

4 comments like (14 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2008

Dagny rated it:

Here is a book which one reads paradoxically wishing it never ended- because it is so good- yet one races to finish- being compelled to- without skipping a word.

My heart was aching for the main characters to come through and survive; for the good to prevail; for some things to go right. This was so suspenseful, more so than anything I have read lately.

Never thought Loeb's green classics, which I can see sitting pretty on a shelf, would be referenced in a suspense novel. I More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2008

Trin rated it:

Oh, stab me in the heart some more, Kate. Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels (the trilogy that begins with Case Histories) just get more and more depressing. This latest is simply brutal. And yet…I loved reading it, in spite of how bleak it is, in spite of the fact that the plot relies on some rather ridiculous Dickensian coincidences, in spite of Atkinson’s apparent hatred of semi-colons and love of comma splices. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I just love the way Atkinson’s characters le More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2008

Nette rated it:

This book is grim, violent, sad (dead kids, dead moms, dead dogs), and also hilarious and uplifting (passionate cops, a ferociously maternal doctor, and a heroic dog who makes it all the way through -- sorry if that's a spoiler, but I would have wanted to know.) The character of 16-year-old Reggie should be given a special literary prize for Best Plucky Orphan Since Oliver Twist. Deeply satisfying and I can't wait for the next one.

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2008

Erica rated it:

This is the last and the best of the Jackson Brodie stories -even better than Case Histories. It ties up loose ends from the previous novels and leaves you wishing for more.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2008

Rorie rated it:

The whole time I was reading this book, I kept waiting for something to actually happen and make sense. There were so many characters and it took almost til the end of the book before they came together. Then she would have the characters make reference to so many different people and I could never remember who those people were or what role they had in the story (most of them didn't have a roll at all)
There were way too many useless words in the book. The author had every single character More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

May 15, 2009

Laurel rated it:

This is my first Kate Atkinson book. I had wanted to read Case Histories, but my library didn't have it in, so I settled on this one. It wasn't until I started to read reviews that I realized this is actually a continuation of the series (apparently following the life of detective Jackson Brodie, though he takes a back seat in this book).

Not knowing at all what to expect from Atkinson, I was a bit startled by the opening scene: a woman is walking down a country road with her 3 chi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2008

Laura rated it:

Kate Atkinson was, for me, a slowly acquired taste. I'd read 'Case Histories' and 'One Good Turn' and, while I found much to admire in each book, I ended up keeping my distance, put off by the violent quirkiness of her plots and characters. In fact, I remember so little about her first book, the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year,'Behind the Scenes at the Museum,' that I must have dropped it after the first few pages.
'When Will There Be Good News', her most recent book, made me a fan. There's More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2009

Bernadette rated it:

In one of the most shocking openings you’ll read to a book a young child witnesses a horrible crime against her family. Thirty years later that young child is Joanna Hunter: a GP a new mother and the employer of 16 year-old orphan Reggie Chase as her ‘mother’s help’. When Dr Hunter disappears unexpectedly Reggie finds it difficult to believe her husband’s explanation. DCI Louise Monroe is obsessed with a different crime against a different family but eventually she too is drawn into the mystery More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2008

LJ rated it:

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? (Pol Proc-Jackson Brodie-England-Cont) – Ex
Atkinson, Kate – 3rd in Jackson Brodie series
Doubleday, 2008, UK Hardcover – ISBN: 9780385608015

First Sentence: The heat rising up from the tarmac seemed to get trapped between the thick hedges that towered above their heads like battlements.

Dr. Joanna Hunter (nee’ Mason) is the only survivor of an attack that killed her mother, sister and brother. Now, thirty years later, the man resp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2009

Laurel-Rain rated it:

A woman and three children are living in the country; a husband is off writing his novels and having affairs – in the city – and against this backdrop, the unexpected happens. On an otherwise blissful day, an intruder stalks into all of their lives, murdering the woman and
two of her children, while another child cowers in the field nearby, unharmed.

Except, of course, for that nasty post-traumatic stress disorder that clings to her – forever.

This is the past, to wh More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Shana rated it:

When Will There Be Good News? is nothing short of a delightful read. Atkinson gives us a sumptuous combination of wonderful well-developed characters, an engaging plot line, and the prose that I am quickly coming to expect of her - clean, subtle, and smart.

The novel is narrated alternately and in the third person by Jackson Brodie, Reggie Chase, and Louise Monroe. I quickly fell in love with all three. Incidentally, I have not read Atkinson's previous two novels featuring Jackson More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 27, 2008

Lisa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Laila rated it:

Kate Atkinson is a total goddess.

I am so in love with this book right now.

10/6/08 So now I've finished. Kate Atkinson knows how to write novels, plain and simple. Nothing of hers has ever disappointed me. Her books defy easy categorization. I simply did not want to put this one down! Jackson Brodie, ex-cop, ex-P.I., also in two of her other novels (read them!), is so appealing. (I envision a sort of rougher-around-the-edges Daniel Craig when I read about his charac More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Pris rated it:

"A Coincidence Is Just An Explanation Waiting To Happen." , November 8, 2008
Coincidence as defined by Webster "the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection." Kate Atkinson is a perfectionist when it comes to coincidence. Her mystery thrillers are made of such. Into each one she weaves a story that grabs us and soon we are ensconced in the telling of the tale.

How to describe the beginning? A full cut mad More...

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Jan 30, 2012

La Reyne rated it:

I absolutely adored this book. Like Rankin or Welsh, she sets it in a very real and tangible Edinburgh, which had its appeal for me having lived there for a number of years and having explored it extensively.

This story is superficially a murder mystery/thriller, and it performs well enough in that respect. It relies on a heavy dose of coincidence, which strains credibility somewhat; but which ultimately I'm fully prepared to overlook,given there was so much else to recommend it. Fo More...

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Jan 04, 2012

Annabelle rated it:

Atkinson plays her cards like usual, very disparate story lines, which seem unrelated and then gel into the place at the end as all related. What I liked about this novel was the primary role of Reggie, a 16 year old, orphaned, living in a slum, but working as a nanny for wonderful Dr. Joanna, and studying for A levels with a little old lady. Also Louise, Jackson’ chaste but authentic lover from Edinburgh has a central roles. These are interesting women. The old lady’s car gets stuck on a rail More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Kathleen rated it:

A new and good find: author Kate Atkinson. I watched a recent episode of Masterpiece Mystery, Case Histories, and really enjoyed the mystery set in Edinburgh with former policeman, now sleuth Jackson Brodie. I was happy to find that I had one of her books in the house, and started reading it the next day: When Will There Be Good News? In this book there are an amazing doctor who refuses to be a victim and a motherless girl who refuses to take no for an answer. In this book as in others by Atkin More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Josh added it

Atkinson's 3rd detective novel to feature jaded ex-policeman Jackson Brodie delivers the goods, with her signature wit, keen sense of the potential in coincidences, managing to keep the reader furiously on his feet to unravel and anticipate when the next missing piece would fit.

Unlike some novels in the crime genre, Atkinson takes time to develop her characters. This is already very much evident in the shocking prologue,which was definitely effectively haunting because the reader already develo More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Ian added it

“When Will There be Good News?” is the third of Kate Atkinson’s crime novels featuring Jackson Brodie, and picks up a couple of years after One Good Turn. Quite a bit has happened in Brodie’s life in the intervening period, and also in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, who was introduced in One Good Turn and is one of the major characters in “When Will There be Good News?” Kate Atkinson is very skilled at drip feeding the back stories of her characters throughout her book - More...

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May 07, 2011

Jean rated it:

I like Kate Atkinson and as usual she poduces the goods.
Reggie Chase is 16 but unless she produces an identity document no-one believes she is not 12 years old. Wise beyond her years - she has had her fair share of tragedy , having lost her mother, never having known her father and she has a brother who has always been bad and is now involved in selling drugs.She finds a job as a nanny to Dr Jo Hunter who herself has had to live with an unbelievable tragedy. Reggie loves Jo and the baby so More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Rosalind rated it:

Even the title sounds ominous. One chapter in and my head was reeling with the gruesomeness of it all. But that was all in the past - although who is this shabby chap, lurking outside a primary school in the Yorkshire Dales and acting very furtively? It can't, surely, be Jackson Brodie the detective from earlier thrillers from this author? Or is it someone altogether more sinister, come from the past to haunt the present?

Meanwhile back in Edinburgh excitable young Regina (known to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 28, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

Wow! It is like the author, Kate Atkinson, draws these very large circles with her writing. And then which each chapter the circles tighten and become smaller and smaller and you see how all the characters are related to each other. Within the largest circle there is a violent crime that happened several years ago. Then we come to find out that all the characters are dealing with violence in one form or another. Some are trying to survive the violence they have witnessed or experienced and some More...

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Jan 25, 2011

Josh rated it:

Atkinson's 3rd detective novel to feature jaded ex-policeman Jackson Brodie delivers the goods, with her signature wit, keen sense of the potential in coincidences, managing to keep the reader furiously on his feet to unravel and anticipate when the next missing piece would fit.

Unlike some novels in the crime genre, Atkinson takes time to develop her characters. This is already very much evident in the shocking prologue,which was effectively haunting because the reader already devel More...

0 comments like

Jan 11, 2011

Ellie rated it:

I automatically like any Kate Atkinson book, even if I haven't read it yet (probably even if I don't like it) although I found her second Brodie book much less interesting than her first. However, I thought she was back in full swing in this book. I like the character of Brodie and his struggle as a father (and a person) and for some odd reason I like fiction about traumatized children. This was especially good because the first traumatized child (in a vivid opening scene that has remained haunt More...

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Oct 08, 2010

Diane rated it:

Atkinson expects her readers to be quick-witted, broad-minded, non-squeamish and well able to keep track of her considerable cast of characters. But she's no slouch with prose; nice way with words and a style that I suspect either sweeps you along or leaves you for dead. I consider myself well and truly swept along.
There's plenty of murder and mayhem in When Will There be Good News and it kind of revolves around the obligatory flawed main-ish character, the sort-of retired private detective More...

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Jul 20, 2010

ICPL added it

This is the third novel (after Case Histories and One Good Turn) by British writer Kate Atkinson featuring former police detective turned private investigator Jackson Brodie. It begins with a horrible crime. A young girl flees as an assailant murders her mother, her sister, her baby brother, and the family dog on a lonely country road. Thirty years later that girl, Joanna, is a doctor and a mother, and the man who committed the crime is being released from prison. Joanna and her baby go miss More...

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Jun 09, 2010

K rated it:

Opens with a disorienting memory of a horrible crime, all the more shocking as it is told roughly from a child's perspective, with odd piercing sensory details. Then shifts to present day, thirty years later, with chapters abruptly alternating from perspectives of an orphaned 16 year old Scottish girl, to a hardened female chief inspector, to an ex-army man who travels a long way to steal a hair from a two year old boy who may or may not be his son. We learn gradually how these individuals relat More...

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