quippe | Entries tagged with kate atkinson

The Blurb On The Back:

Once it had been the great forest of Lythe – a vast and impenetrable thicket of green with a mystery in the very heart of the trees. And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor, visited once by the great Gloriana herself.

But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees. The Fairfaxes had dwindled too; now they lived in ‘Arden’ at the end of Hawthorne Close and were hardly a family at all.

There was Vinny (the Aunt from Hell) – with her cats and her crab-apple face. And Gordon, who had forgotten them for seven years and, when he remembered, came back with fat Debbie, who shared her one brain cell with a poodle. And then there were Charles and Isobel, the children. Charles, the acne-scarred Lost Boy, passed his life awaiting visits from aliens and the return of his mother. But it is Isobel to whom the story belongs – Isobel, born on the Streets of Trees, who drops into pockets of time and out again. Isobel is sixteen and she too is waiting for the return of her mother – the thin, dangerous Eliza with her scent of nicotine, Arpege and sex, whose disappearance is part of the mystery that still remains at the heart of the forest.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Worth a look but it's let down by a poor ending that made me feel as though I'd wasted my time with the preceding pages.

The Blurb On The Back:

Investigating other people's tragedies and cock-ups and misfortunes was all he knew. He was used to being a voyeur, the outsider looking in, and nothing, but nothing, that anyone did surprised him any more. Yet despite everything he'd seen and done, inside Jackson there remained a belief - a small, battered and bruised belief - that his job was to help people be good rather than punish them for being bad.

Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance.

Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, he attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected ...

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This has an interesting plot but it's stifled by stereotypical characterisation and some appalling dialogue. It's a well paced novel that would suit the beach for those too snobby to take an Ian Rankin or P. G. James or Karin Slaughter, but I'd suggest that those authors give you a more rounded detective experience.