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Started Early, Took My Dog (Jackson Brodie #4)

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 9,280 ratings · 1,561 reviews

Tracy Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective-a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other-or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly. Suddenly burdened with a small child...more

Hardcover, 371 pages

Published March 21st 2011 by Reagan Arthur Books (first published 2010)

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May 19, 2013 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Because of all the buzz about Kate Atkinson and the great reviews my GR friends gave this book, I decided to give Started Early, Took My Dog a spin. I couldn't decide if the title was a turn on or off. I was pleasantly surprised.
In the beginning, I couldn't tell who the main character was. I'm still not absolutely sure. Everyone talks about Jackson Brodie, so I'll make a safe bet on him, though Tracey is pretty important as well.
I 'm counting four conflicts, though they're all variations on a t...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, read-in-2013

Rating: 4.5 stars

This fourth (and possibly final) outing in the Jackson Brodie series is my favourite. Jackson shares his tale with lonely retired Superintendent Tracy, dotty old actress Tilly, an adorable little girl, an equally adorable little dog, and a motley crew of retired coppers who graduated from police school with Gene Hunt, but who shirked the classes that gave Gene his gruff charm. They're all linked by an event that happened in the 1970s, and as Jackson searches for the truth, so th...more

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Apr 18, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I liked this book. I like Kate Atkinson. I like how characters are introduced slowly, and I don't always know instantly whose point of view I'm reading. Sometimes, I recognize connections between characters in the later books and characters or actions happening in current books. And I like how some mysteries are left unsolved at the end of the book.

I am starting to have difficulties with Jackson Brodie. I can believe in improbable things happening....a little bit of chaos theory in action. That'...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Pattie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

Another Kate Atkinson arrived at our library, and lived up to my sky-high expectations.

Here's the thing: if you want everything tied up in a neat package: no. If you want a linear narrative: no. "Easy read": no.

But if you love interesting, complex characters, complex stories and delightful writing: yes. Part-time private-eye and semi-successful womanizer Jackson Brodie, and cranky retired cop Tracy Waterhouse are the centerpieces of this book. Jackson spends the book confused, chasing several...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Angela added it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, murder, mayhem

This, the fourth in a series of novels in which Jackson Brodie features, is as entertaining and gripping as the others.

Personally, I enjoy Kate Atkinson’s writing, but this is not a particularly easy read. Amid the intertwining plots and time periods it is easy to lose one’s way - concentration and attention to detail are definitely required of the reader! No bad thing though and the rewards a great. The story is full of interest and humour - lots of murder, mystery and mayhem along the way to...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Josie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Apr 26, 2013 Huw Rhys rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm sure there was a good detective novel trying to emerge from this morass, somewhere...

But it was hidden between too many unnecessary characters, too many unfinished tales, too many completely pointless streams of consciousness, too many attempts at being a South American "magic" novel of the 1970's/ 1980's, too much cataloguing of "nasty murders that happened up north", and too many ridiculous coincidences - just too much fog and unfinished waffle in general.

Cut it down by 100 pages or so and...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Trina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

These are much better than the average "mystery". Jackson Brodie is a private detective, but he is kind of an anti-hero protagonist and makes fun of his own many failings. The writing is good and the characters are unusual. I've read all 4 Jackson Brodie books -- like Erin I wonder if it's time for Atkinson to turn her hand to another protagonist. Liked it a lot, though.

Newsflash! Just found out from a friend that the title is from an Emily Dickinson poem. Maybe everybody knew but me? here is th...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Madelyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Kate Atkinson's book, Started Early, Took My Dog, began like one of Jackson Brodie's detested trains - chug, chug, chug, hiccough, back up, chug, chug. Then I was 100 pages into it and realized the narrative had picked up considerable speed, and quite frankly, I couldn't put it down. There were many British references and slang terms which I was unfamiliar with, but Atkinson is such a good writer that the context was clear. She very neatly weaves an intricate story, moving back and forth in time...more

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Feb 03, 2013 Davie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished

I didn't realize this was part of a series (plot was still totally sensible) -- but now that I'm finished, I'll definitely go back and try the others.

I don't know of too many well known literary crime fiction writers (vs the various numbered or alphabeted series). The only ones I can think of now are Tana French, and maybe Gillian Flynn. Of these, Kate Atkinson is my favorite, hands down. There's a good mix of sordid interesting detail, very expertly doled out plot details, and -- different fro...more

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Dec 14, 2012 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book. I decided on three stars as I did have a difficult time getting into the rhythm of the book. At first it seemed very staccato like as the sentences were short with a lot of one or two word phrases. I got over it and moved on.

This seems to be a mish mash of characters and story lines ( the "story within a story") but everything comes together. Everything stems from Tracy Waterhouse, retired cop, who buys a kid. Yes, she buys a kid. Which gets Trac...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Kate Atkinson's novels. She is such a good writer. Everyone I read amazes me. She has great characters, with interesting complexities. Her plots are interesting and unique. This new novel is no exception.
Jackson Brodie is back again, this time looking for the missing past for a woman. But he isn't the only one searching for something, and there are parties interested in keeping it all buried.
A new and interesting character here is Tracy Waterhouse, retired police detective superintendent...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Cameling rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: series

When I first read 'Case Histories', I didn't think this would turn into a series but I'm so glad it has.

As with others in the series, Jackson Brodie continues on his self-reflective journey. This time, he rescues an abused dog and, dog in tow, he searches for the biological parents of Hope McMasters, a search that seems hopeless as clues as to their whereabouts and even her adoption, continue to be elusive.

Tracey Waterhouse, a retired detective, now in charge of security at a mall, sees a repea...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Liz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, comfort-reads

This was a reread, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Atkinson tackles the familiar theme of violence against women - in this case against particularly underpriveleged women such as prostitutes. By setting the story in Leeds, with one timeline running just before the Yorkshire Ripper began his reign of terror, Atkinson highlights the differences between the way such victims were viewed thirty years ago and now - and the prejudices that still remain.

At the heart of the story are two innocents: a littl...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Miriam Downey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Review can be found here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.c...

The first time I read one of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mysteries, I was in love. Started Early, Took My Dog is the fourth time that Jackson Brodie has met a bunch of unique women and solved some difficult crimes related to those women. Now that Jason Isaacs is playing Jackson Brodie on BBC, we even know what he looks like, although Isaacs may be more handsome than I imagined Jackson Brodie to be. Atkinson has two things going...more Review can be found here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.c...

The first time I read one of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mysteries, I was in love. Started Early, Took My Dog is the fourth time that Jackson Brodie has met a bunch of unique women and solved some difficult crimes related to those women. Now that Jason Isaacs is playing Jackson Brodie on BBC, we even know what he looks like, although Isaacs may be more handsome than I imagined Jackson Brodie to be. Atkinson has two things going for her in the Jackson Brodie mysteries: Jackson Brodie is a very interesting, conflicted character and the women he runs into are feisty and colorful.

Started Early, Took My Dog is messy. Brodie is in a rather bad state; he has been running from himself for several months even as he searches for his ex-wife who stole all his money. He is in Leeds in Yorkshire “searching for the lost pastoral England that was lodged in his head and his heart” when he is hired by a woman in New Zealand to find her British mother. While he searches for his ex-wife, he is also searching for the lost mother. It appears that the New Zealand woman is somehow tied to a woman that may have been murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s. But how does the old lady actress fit into the puzzle? And the woman police sergeant who has just bought a little girl from a prostitute and is running for her life?

And then there is the dog. Jackson has two children including a teen aged daughter who has occasionally gone with her father on his escapades, but in this book she is virtually non-existent except to be worried over. Instead, Jackson has acquired a dog that accompanies him and on one incident saves his life. The dog is just one more complication in an already extremely complicated life.

Like all Atkinson mysteries, the pieces eventually fit together, the grisly crimes are resolved, some more satisfactorily than others, and Jackson meanders on. The beauty of Atkinson’s writing is that the characters are just as interesting as the plotting. Jackson Brodie is a great character and no matter how messy the book gets, Jackson seems to survive and bumble his way to a solution. One of the best comments is about the atheistic Jackson. “He missed God. But then who didn’t.”

The reviewer in the Seattle Post: “Reading Atkinson is like working on a puzzle, trying to figure out how she is going to weave it all together, and it is fascinating how she manages to do it-the first few times, anyway.” I felt that way too. Atkinson may be getting a little bit tired of her character. She says as much in an interview published on the Amazon.com website. She tells the interviewer: “I found the Brodie books easy to begin with, and then very difficult to finish. I haven't actually finished with him yet but at the moment he's taking a holiday somewhere restful. I found the new book really hard but I think I'd just run out of steam with the character. I'm writing something completely different at the moment and it's amazing how much energy I have for it and what a relief it feels! I think the next time I re-visit Jackson it will be with that same kind of enthusiasm -- and he (and I) will be all the better for having taken a break from each other!” Now that I have read four of the books and watched 6 hours of the series, I am probably ready to take a break from Jackson Brodie as well.

If you haven’t tried any of the Jackson Brodie novels by Kate Atkinson, it’s high time you delve into them. The Case Histories BBC series is available on Netflix and is quite faithful to the text, although Jackson gets more air time in the television show than he does in the books.
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Aug 31, 2012 Esme rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller

Tracy Waterhouse hat in ihren Dienstjahren bei der Polizei von Yorkshire das Schlimmste gesehen, was Menschen einander antun können. Besonders ein Fall hat sie nie losgelassen; ein Kind, das drei Wochen lang mit seiner toten Mutter zusammen in einer Wohnung eingeschlossen war. "Das Kind retten, die Welt retten. Das Kind war die Welt. Die Welt, die ganze Welt und nichts als die Welt." Sie kauft ein offenbar vernachlässigtes Kind und befindet sich fortan auf der Flucht.

Jackson Brodie bezeichnet si...more Tracy Waterhouse hat in ihren Dienstjahren bei der Polizei von Yorkshire das Schlimmste gesehen, was Menschen einander antun können. Besonders ein Fall hat sie nie losgelassen; ein Kind, das drei Wochen lang mit seiner toten Mutter zusammen in einer Wohnung eingeschlossen war. "Das Kind retten, die Welt retten. Das Kind war die Welt. Die Welt, die ganze Welt und nichts als die Welt." Sie kauft ein offenbar vernachlässigtes Kind und befindet sich fortan auf der Flucht.

Jackson Brodie bezeichnet sich selbst als Aussteiger, er fährt mit seinem Auto durch das Land und besichtigt Sehenswürdigkeiten. Nebenbei sucht er nach der Vergangenheit und Herkunft von Hope, die im Alter von zwei Jahren adoptiert wurde und in Neuseeland aufwuchs. Weil er eine pinkfarbene Aktenmappe hat, gelangt er auf die Spur der vor mehr als 30 Jahren ermordeten Prostituierten und von Tracy Waterhouse, die sich ihm immer wieder entzieht.

In Kate Atkinsons viertem Kriminalroman mit Jackson Brodie Started early, took my Dog (Das vergessene Kind) verlaufen diese Handlungsstränge zunächst scheinbar parallel. Aber das stimmt nicht so ganz, die Zusammenhänge sind erst noch lose, und man glaubt ahnen zu können, wohin sich das Ganze entwickeln wird. Und wird natürlich eines Besseren belehrt. Die einzelnen Episoden greifen ineinander und verflechten sich immer weiter.

Dabei könnte man die offensichtliche Konstruktion kritisieren und es werden jede Menge Zufälle bemüht, jedoch mit einer solchen Nonchalance, dass man die Autorin nur bewundern kann. Die Romanfiguren spielen nicht nur eine Rolle oder füllen eine Funktion aus, jede einzelne hat etwas zu sagen. Dabei sind es auch Nebenfiguren, wie die demente Schauspielerin Tilly, die einem ans Herz gehen. Das Thema, das alle miteinander verbindet, ist wie immer in Kate Atkinsons Romanen die Familie.

Das Geheimnis des Kindes, welches Tracy gekauft hat, wird nicht vollständig gelöst. Es gibt einen Hinweis und man kann sich seine eigenen Gedanken machen. Und das ist auch gut so, es ist wie im richtigen Leben, wenn man Menschen eine zeitlang begleitet und dann für immer aus den Augen verliert, man wird nie wissen, wie es ihnen ergangen ist.

Jackson Brodie ist schrullig geworden, doch noch nicht so sehr, dass er sich zu einer Karikatur seiner selbst entwickelt hätte. Er führt innere Dialoge mit einer imaginären Julia, wird sogar eifersüchtig auf andere Besitzer "seiner" Navi-Jane. Vielleicht wäre eine Pause ganz gut, damit sich diese wunderbare Reihe nicht auch noch in eine Seifenoper verwandelt.(less)

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Aug 17, 2012 Kathy Szydlo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The fourth of the Jackson Brodie novels. It took me a while to get caught up in this one, but I liked it once I did. Atkinson seems to like to tease readers by making us guess for awhile as to who each scene is about. So it takes some going back and rereading sections at times.

Like the other 3 books, she introduces several characters who seem to be unconnected, then switches back and forth among them throughout the book as they become part of the same story. She also jumps from the present to th...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Lisa Louie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Kate Atkinson's mystery novel, Started Early, Took My Dog, the story begins with two acts that echo each other, each of them almost morally inevitable. A retired police investigator, Tracy Waterhouse, sees a down-and-out woman in the mall, dragging and haranguing a small child, and on an impulse, runs up to her and offers to buy the child. The woman agrees and hands over the child. In the echo act, another retired police investigator, Jackson Brodie, sees a man abusing a small dog in public,...more In Kate Atkinson's mystery novel, Started Early, Took My Dog, the story begins with two acts that echo each other, each of them almost morally inevitable. A retired police investigator, Tracy Waterhouse, sees a down-and-out woman in the mall, dragging and haranguing a small child, and on an impulse, runs up to her and offers to buy the child. The woman agrees and hands over the child. In the echo act, another retired police investigator, Jackson Brodie, sees a man abusing a small dog in public, dragging it around on a rope and kicking it. Jackson does what most onlookers would fantasize about doing; he punches the man in his stomach and takes the dog away from him. The story that follows, though, is not necessarily the cause-and-effect outcome of either act. Rather it's the story of the past that led up to these acts of rescue. Thirty years earlier, a prostitute is murdered, and her son is left alone with her body for three weeks until someone finds them. Then the boy disappears, his existence erased. In another place, a girl is kidnapped. And somewhere else, Jackson Brodie's eighteen-year old sister is murdered. The ins and outs of the injustices and wrongs committed, the perpetrators revealed or left disappeared or unknown, and the tale about the unexpected reckonings that bubble up in the present are the grist of the mystery laid out in Atkinson's novel.

This is a story built of echoes and resonances. “Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture,” Atkinson said in an interview with Scott Butki, included at the back of the book. I like this description of the novel form as plastic mental sculpture; it provides a fitting visual for the experience of reading Started Early, Took My Dog. For in this novel, the mystery story about what happened thirty years before to a prostitute and her child and whether anyone would be held accountable, is merely the frame that holds up the sculpture and not the substance itself. Intertwined around this central mystery are the twin transgressions, the kidnapping of a child, the kidnapping of a dog, and together they sound a harmony of emotional resonances with all the other missing children, either kidnapped, miscarried, aborted, or longed for but never realized. With it comes the strong sense of one's lifetime waning, of being called to account for what you did or didn't do on those fateful occasions when you thought of yourself as merely an innocent bystander. How fateful occasions wrought upon someone who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, plant themselves in the soul and birth inevitable choices. This is not a young person's novel about venturing down the path less traveled, but a novel about accounting for oneself after much has been said and done, seeing clearly the road not taken as only hindsight is able to identify, and attempting a quiet redemption while there's still time.(less)

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Aug 07, 2012 Pascale Plänk Steig rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A convoluted detective story with good character development. But beyond that, the thing that lingers on long after finishing one of Kate Atkinson’s books is a feeling of ravished enchantment, the fuzzy memory of something very enjoyable yet imprecise.
I remember I absolutely LOVED Behind the Scenes at the Museum, as well as several of her other books, but can’t or the life of me recall what they were about, just that once I enter into her world, I invariably start to think of Agatha Christie’s...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As elegant as a Bach fugue and wise and fun at the same time. The lives of three strangers intersect briefly in Leeds in Yorkshire and then wander down separate but converging trajectories as tragic events from their lives 35 years ago drive propel them on paths of attempted resolution of their losses.

The three main characters are a retired woman cop working in mall security, an elderly actress with growing dementia, and a detective looking for the birth mother of a woman in New Zealand. Luckil...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Marc Nash rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kate Atkinson is that rare beast. A genre (thriller) writer who crosses over into the literary. Nothing much happens thriller wise until about page 300, other than a very clever double set-up for two of the three main characters that the book focuses on. So the thriller element kind of creeps up on you. What you do get is three beautiful character studies weaving in and out of one another. The first is semi-retired PI Jackson Brodie who Atkinson fans will be familiar with from three earlier nove...more Kate Atkinson is that rare beast. A genre (thriller) writer who crosses over into the literary. Nothing much happens thriller wise until about page 300, other than a very clever double set-up for two of the three main characters that the book focuses on. So the thriller element kind of creeps up on you. What you do get is three beautiful character studies weaving in and out of one another. The first is semi-retired PI Jackson Brodie who Atkinson fans will be familiar with from three earlier novels. The second is a stunningly well realised recently retired women detective, plump, single and unloved. These are the two characters who both pull off a deed that echoes one another with a dizzying set of consequences. The third character is a middle-range actress, succumbing to the early stages of alzheimer's disease.

All three characters are towards the upper end of the age spectrum. All three wistfully look back on their lives, the choices, the aspirations, the mistakes. The events that happen here partially emerge from the unresolved parts of their lives. The thriller element itself, also an unsolved crime from thirty years ago. Because we have met Brodie before, his tale I maybe find the least satisfying, as I think Atkinson has had to squeeze the rind a bit more to keep finding fresh things to say about him. In some places I think he contradicts himself, but hey we're human beings right, we are contrary sometimes. The actress also maybe is a bit unstartling in her portrayal of someone suffering from alzheimers. A bit writing senility by numbers perhaps, bathos as much as pathos.

But it is the retired detective who perhaps makes the largest journey within the novel and easily the most satisfying one. It's slightly frustrating that I can't describe the event in the present that sends her spinning wildly from her regular domestic cosiness, since to do so would be a spoiler. But the seemingly impulsive act is gradually revealed to have very deep seated roots and is fascinatingly unravelled by a precision drip release from the author. Simply masterful. Lie back and bask in a wonderful character study and the new relationship she develops which is just so endearing it almost bought a lump to this hardened hack's throat.
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Jun 20, 2012 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, fiction, anti-mysteries

Atkinson is a thinking persons writer, who is also not caught up in using big words to discuss big concepts. This is extremely difficult to pull off, as many authors try to either dumb down their ideas to fit a certain reading genre or they inflate their work with self-importance. Atkinson digs deep into the human psyche and weaves tales upon themselves and over again, and everything in her books is connected. There is a reason for everything she does and everything falls into place, one by one,...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’ll say at the outset that Left Early, Took My Dog wins the 2012 WW best title award. It’s early, so I may run across something to match it, but I doubt it. The last notable—Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River —was a great moniker whose book failed to live up to its cover. Not so Left Early.
I do believe I’ve read all of Kate Atkinson’s novels and loved them all. I recently happened on a PBS miniseries based on When Will There Be Good News, which was okay.
But this is my first dose of a printed...more I’ll say at the outset that Left Early, Took My Dog wins the 2012 WW best title award. It’s early, so I may run across something to match it, but I doubt it. The last notable—Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River —was a great moniker whose book failed to live up to its cover. Not so Left Early.
I do believe I’ve read all of Kate Atkinson’s novels and loved them all. I recently happened on a PBS miniseries based on When Will There Be Good News, which was okay.
But this is my first dose of a printed page something new and original from her in--well it turns out to be only a little over a year, but it seems like three or five. It was like receiving a second present to walk into the book store to spend my Christmas gift card and see her name staring at me from the New Fiction rack.

Dog returns us to Jackson Brodie, of course, our hapless cop/private eye whom we last saw when he lost his identity and nearly his life in a train wreck. Only to survive and have brand new bride disappear with his hefty inheritance.

Here, we don’t encounter him till many pages in. Atkinson exercises her supreme skill at weaving disparate times, characters, and location in a way that makes totally unrelated events and people seem to be part of the same narrative. Which, in fact, they are. Other writers do this, but not like she does. Even though the book slides back and forth between the 70’s and 2010 and various points in between, we never feel jarred or confused or cheated in the sense that the author is withholding information simply for the purpose of shocking or tricking us. Nothing so lazy as that for Lady Kate. (Would she be offended at a title like that? Probably, but she’s literary royalty in my book, so there.)

Instead, we feel we’re on a voyage of discovery up a river with an experienced guide, looking for the source, and each fork is a new adventure that could lead to the wellspring or a dead end. Or, to put it another way, we are in the process of assembling a puzzle, and each new piece fills in a blank that has simply been waiting for something of that particular shape to come along and complete some portion of the image.

If you deconstruct the basic plot, it’s rather conventional. No pyrotechnics of note, though there’s plenty of suspense. But the elements that would be gimmicky or mere color in the hands of many authors become organic, essential for Kate. Like the dog. And that’s what makes her special.

Oh, and the depth of her characters. Like the wonderful Tilly, through whose experience we understand a little of what the onset of dementia must be like. Or Jackson himself, who wanders around with the voices of several women—ex-wives—in his head and the body of none (who matter) in his bed.

Or the narrative’s embedded sorrow for and protest against the daily brutality we commit against women and children.

And then… oh, quit reading my comments about this book and go read the book itself. Much better use of your time.

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May 15, 2012 Jrobertus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a crime thriller, but really spends most of its time developing personalities. In this novel, ex detective Jackson Brodie tries to find out the identity of a woman in New Zealand who was adopted. This story meshes with that of Tracy Waterhouse, another ex cop, who wants a child, and bus one from an abusive crack ho. The stories weave around a group of cops, Tracy's old unit, one of whom accidentally killed a prostitute years ago, and stole the kid to be adopted by country club friends. A...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Kyle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: listened

Good solid mystery, well written, nice sense of place, suspenseful - I listened to this as an audiobook, and although I usually only listen to audiobooks on my commute I ended up sticking my earphones in and listening to this one all weekend (thereby getting a lot of chores done in a relatively painless fashion!).

I probably won't listen to audiobooks of the rest of the books in this series, though - I wasn't crazy about the audio production. For one thing, the plot is sufficiently complicated (...more

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Feb 01, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Adoption should always be like this
More than once I’ve thought Kate Atkinson should have titled her series of four Jackson Brodie books “Crash I, II, III & IV.”

These books – all of them – are about smashups, people or vehicles colliding and incidents past and present piling up on one another.

The action is mostly chaotic, frenetic and always unexpected and characters in each of the books – usually nearer the end – are like atoms smashing into each inside a super-collider. And always there see...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Started Early, Took My Dog is KateAtkinson's fourth book featuring semi-retired detective Jackson Brody. In 1975, PCs Ken Arkwright and Tracey Waterhouse discover the several days dead body of a prostitute, Carole Braithwaite, and her young child. Current time: Waterhouse, now over 50, recently retired, and working as chief of security for a mall--lonely--impulsively buys a child from a junkie.

As the book opens, Jackson is working as an investigator for Hope McMaster--searching for her birth pa...more Started Early, Took My Dog is KateAtkinson's fourth book featuring semi-retired detective Jackson Brody. In 1975, PCs Ken Arkwright and Tracey Waterhouse discover the several days dead body of a prostitute, Carole Braithwaite, and her young child. Current time: Waterhouse, now over 50, recently retired, and working as chief of security for a mall--lonely--impulsively buys a child from a junkie.

As the book opens, Jackson is working as an investigator for Hope McMaster--searching for her birth parents. She was told that she was born Sharon Costello. Her parents, John and Angela were killed in an auto accident when she was two. Hope was adopted by Dr. Ian Winfield and his wife Kitty, a former model. They then moved to New Zealand.
Unfortunately, there was no record of a John and Angela Costello killed in a car crash. No record Sharon Costello's birth.

The mystery is whether and, if so, how these two stories will weave together.
My pleasure in reading this book--and mysteries generally--is meeting new people, and places and listening in as they grapple with their world. Jackson Brodie is a delightful guide into the world Atkinson creates.

Among the many pleasures of reading Atkinson are her pithy comments on that world. Brody, who has recently turned 50, and thinks, "He had his phone and his car and his music, what more did a man need?" Well, a dog named "The Ambassador," that he rescues from a sadist. As the title suggests, the dog is along for the ride.

Thinking about his adolescent daughter Marlee, born out of wedlock, and her mother Julia, Jackson recognizes that he and Julia were united through their child. "He would never be free of her . . . ."

Visiting abbeys in Yorkshire, Jackson "missed God. But then who didn't? . . . . God slipped out of the building a long time ago and he wasn't coming back, but, like any good architect, he had left his work behind as his legacy."
Jackson, who came to the arts later in life, is interested in Emily Dickinson's poetry. "But poetry had wormed its way in, uninvited. A Toad, can die of Light! crazy." Always one to philosophize, Jackson's "definition of 'elderly' had changed as he himself had moved nearer to the event horizon of death."

Jackson's clients want to find out the "truth," but in his "experience, finding the truth--whatever it was--only deepened the mystery of what had really happened in the past."

But Jackson continues his investigation and brings it to a satisfying conclusion.

Along the way, he continues with his insightful comments about the journey. I'll conclude with just one more that I can't resist: "'We share 85% of our DNA with dogs,' the barber said. 'Well, we share 50% with bananas, so I don't think that means anything.'"
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Nov 30, 2011 Laurel Bradshaw rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, england, mystery, audiobook

Another solid entry in the Jackson Brodie series - humor, mystery, quirky characters, intertwining plot threads. I was pleased that we got to learn a bit more about Jackson in this book, who has returned to his Yorkshire roots. In the previous novel, the author started with an "event" involving all the major characters and then followed them to a sort of conclusion. This one, starts out with multiple characters and threads, not bringing them together until an "event" toward the end of the book....more

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Nov 11, 2011 Denise rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't think it's possible for me to love Kate Atkinson books more than I do. I want to go to Edinburgh and hang out with her (and when I said this on Twitter, some inn owner in that lovely,gloomy city said I should stop on by; they have a shelf full of Atkinson books in their cottage!). Anyway, this is Atkinson's fourth Jackson Brodie mystery, and I read this book as I was also watching the PBS Masterpiece Mystery series, Case Histories,in which a very watchable Jason Isaacs brings Brodie to l...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Don Hackett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jackson is back, after having been on the wrong train, in a coma, or semi-clueless for most of When Will there be Good News. He is not on his best game, wandering and wondering where to make his home, who to make it with, and where is the woman who married him and then disappeared with his money. He does a little part time investigating, this time looking for the birth parents of a woman who grew-up with adoptive parents who moved to New Zealand right after she was adopted. Though there are some...more

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About Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and...more

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When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, #3)

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“Fiction had never been Jackson's thing. Facts seemed challenging enough without making stuff up. What he discovered was that the great novels of the world were about three things - death, money and sex. Occasionally a whale.” — 13 people liked it

“This Jackson bloke was the ruddy Scarlet Pimpernel, here, there and everywhere, always one step ahead of Barry. And everywhere he went, women were disappearing.” — 4 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8174392-started-early-took-my-dog?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265289l/8174392.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8174392-started-early-took-my-dog?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson[/url]

Started Early, Took My Dog (Jackson Brodie #4)

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