When Will There Be Good News?

The blurb of When Will There Be Good News? piqued my interest, but the first few pages had me hooked. The novel opens to a scene of violence and loss and gives us six-year-old Joanna Mason's third person account of the day that she lost her family. Somehow, despite the details of the day and Joanna's youth, we get a sense of the woman that she becomes. Admirable, strong, courageous, and simpatico. The other women characters are similarly compelling and parts of the story is told in the third person but from their points of view. There's Reggie who seems to be stalked by death. Brilliant, she did well academically at the horrible posh school where she'd been awarded a scholarship. But socially, the school was a disaster for Reggie. When freed from her mother's watchful eye, Reggie trades school for two jobs and private tutoring of sorts. Reggie's favorite place is at Dr. Hunter's home, with the baby, Dr. Hunter and the dog. Clean, full of light, warm and welcoming, it is where Reggie feels most useful and at home. The organized, well-read, caring, and efficient Dr. Hunter seems a strange match with her dodgy husband in the "entertainment business". But while Reggie and Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe may shake their heads, love is a strange business. When you're among those that Dr. Hunter loves, you bask in the warmth of her affection. She'll phone to speak to baby and to the dog. Accomplished but not vain, Dr. Hunter is an "all rounder" - an athlete, musician, gifted doctor, cherished mother, wife, and friend. Her judgement in all things, excepting her husband, seems unimpeachable. Through the character and point of view of Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, the book moves towards the tradition of the British detective novels. Centered on work to the detriment of her marriage and social life, DCI Monroe reminds us that When Will There Be Good News? is a detective thriller and mystery. As DCI Monroe and Reggie work to piece together the mystery of Dr. Hunter's disappearance, the tension rises and leads us to a satisfying end. I thoroughly enjoyed When Will There Be Good News? I laughed, cried, couldn't put it down. If you like detective novels, give it a try. This book is great for a long trip, a cold afternoon or whenever you're looking for a fully satisfying read! Plus, it comes out in paperback on Jan. 10. I'm so glad to have discovered Kate Atkinson. Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (January 11, 2010), 416 pages. ISBN-10: 0316012831 Review copy provided by the publish

It's been a long time since I've savored a book. Lately, I've slogged through books, skimmed my way through books and inhaled books. (It's been a hit and miss winter of reading, if you can't tell.) But "When Will There Be Good News?" is the perfect mix of gripping mystery, tongue in cheek societal commentary and careful character study. And? Even though it was more than difficult at times...I managed to savor it for a whole WEEK. (OK, there was one late night where I lost track of time, but still.) Based on Atkinson's previous Jackson Brodie novels, I was accustomed to her style and the pace of action, but I didn't remember the wonderful snarkiness of some of her, I mean, the characters' observations. "In Jackson's long experience, security covered a multitude of sins, but actually it was pretty straightforward - he had a card in his wallet that said "Jackson Brodie - Security Consultant" (consultant, now there was a word that covered an even greater multitude of sins)." And when Atkinson read my thoughts, "...he believed that no woman should wear a pair of shoes that she couldn't, if necessary, run away in." "....None of the women at Bernie's soiree looked as if they would be prepared to toss away their Manolos and Jimmy Choos to make a quick getaway. Yes, he knew the names of designer shoemakers, and no, that wasn't the kind of stuff real men from the north should know..." And one of my favorites: "...the walls had been spray-painted rather ineptly with the words, "Your dead." Reggie felt bile rising up, making her nauseous. You cant hide from us. Who was us? Who were these people who didn't know how to use an apostrophe? They must be looking for Billy. Billy knew a lot of ungrammatical people." Kate Atkinson has a sneaky way of easing into dramatic and usually violent scenes that catches me off guard, has me jumping back a few paragraphs in a startled, "Did I really just read that?" kind of way. Early in the book, she had me right smack in the middle of a sunny, humid summer day, feeling the sun, smelling dried grass...and then literally (hee) smacked me upside the head with a random act of violence that I did NOT see coming. And the mystery and action build in such a character focused way that while I may not be able to predict what the characters will do, she's laid enough groundwork that their actions never take a sideways turn that seem out of place. In that character focused way, the book is filled with wonderful bits - simply said, but exactly right. "Yes," Reggie said. "My mother's not here at the moment." One lie, one truth. They canceled each other out and left the world unchanged." Or "It went without saying that Jackson didn't believe in angels, but in extremis he was always willing to give credence to anything." And "He had drawn those terrible feelings inside himself, nourishing them in solitary confinement until they formed the hard, black nugget of coal at the heart of his soul, but now the disaster

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 which the reader is introduced in When Will There Be Good News?: A Novel, followed by an influx of seemingly unrelated characters - Reggie, who is Dr. Hunter's nanny; Louise, an unhappily-married police officer, fondly recalling a love she almost had, a long time ago; Jackson, married twice and cuckolded by a lover, whose infant child may inadvertently belong to him; and Ms. MacDonald, a former teacher, now retired. Somehow, all of these disparate individuals are connected by at least one common thread. A train wreck...Indeed, as one character hurtles along on a train headed toward London, or so Jackson believes, it is actually headed toward Edinburgh. When it lurches and turns on its side, its passengers tossed about, everything becomes tangled - literally. When Jackson ends up in hospital, miraculously kept alive by CPR administered by one Reggie Chase, he has the wrong ID on him. This fact sets the tale in a completely different direction. Unbeknownst to these two characters - Reggie, the nanny, and Jackson, a former police detective - Dr. Hunter and her baby have gone missing. Ah, yes - Dr. Hunter is the former Joanna Mason, the child accidentally left alive by the murderer all those years ago - and to compound the case even further, the murderer, one Andrew Decker, has just been released from prison. With the alternating storylines and characters, careening toward the answers to so many questions, I kept turning these pages, almost breathless, anticipating the conclusions. And, of course, there are many surprises at the end, which makes this more than an ordinary mystery, or a simple love story, and certainly not a predictable drama. This writer skillfully teases the reader, pushing and pulling the facts around, until they arrange themselves in such a clever way. I found myself going back to the beginning again, wondering what I might have missed - what clue I had overlooked - in order to have been so stunned by the ending. I have another of Ms. Atkinson's books on my stack - One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery - which will receive my attention very soon. Laurel-Rain Snow Author of: An Accidental Life, etc.

Kate Atkinson's most recent novels have seemed, on the surface of things, like a radical departure for a Whitbread Award-winning novelist whose previous works were noted for their use of magical realism and their unusual family dynamics. With CASE HISTORIES, however, the first book featuring detective Jackson Brodie, Atkinson took her well-established skill at exploring characters and relationships, and applied it to an entirely new genre --- the mystery. Since then, with ONE GOOD TURN and now with WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, Atkinson continues to push the boundaries of the mystery genre, writing intricate, suspenseful character studies that are bound to appeal even to literary purists who would swear they had never read a mystery novel in their lives. These three books are loosely interconnected, focusing at least in part on Brodie and Edinburgh police inspector Louise Monroe. In ONE GOOD TURN, the sexual tension that defined Jackson and Louise's interactions never came to fruition; in WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, readers will be intrigued to discover that both main characters, in the intervening months, have made very similar choices in their personal lives, choices that will continue to complicate their personal and professional relationships. But, as with the previous titles in this series, the private detective and the police inspector are, unusually, hardly the most important characters in the novel. Instead, Atkinson introduces a good dozen characters, each of whom carries his or her own tale of love, loss and betrayal, and whose stories come together in remarkable and, at times, surprising ways. Central to the story is Joanna Hunter, now a successful physician and new mother living in Edinburgh. As a child, however, Joanna gained notoriety for being the only survivor of a brutal triple murder that left her mother, older sister and baby brother dead. The killer was sentenced to life in prison, but after 30 years he's now out on parole, and Joanna is haunted by fears that the media --- and the assailant himself --- might find her and destroy the new life she's built for herself. Part of that new life includes Joanna's husband Neil, a somewhat shady businessman with secrets of his own, and mother's helper Reggie (short for Regina), a teenager studying for her A-levels and adopting Joanna as a surrogate mother, since few people know that Reggie's own mother died more than a year ago. Her older brother Billy is up to no good, so when Joanna disappears, Reggie doesn't know where to turn. That is, until she encounters Louise Monroe, who is investigating a suspicious fire at one of Neil's business establishments, and Jackson Brodie, whom Reggie meets by chance after he's been seriously injured in a brutal and bloody train derailment. Each of these three have their own reasons for delving into the mysteries that surround them. Besides being passably engaging mysteries, Atkinson's latest novels are utterly engrossing joint character stud

"Case Histories" was one of the best suspense novels I have read in the last few years. However, "When Will There Be Good News?" blows the doors off Atkinson's earlier work. With this book, Atkinson establishes herself as the absolute best writer of literary suspense working today, and fulfills the promise of literary suspense by writing a novel that can stand comparison with the finest straight literary fiction, reminding us that she started her career by winning the prestigious Whitbread Prize for ambitious literary work. The plot crackles with excitement, jumping from one to another of her four interlocking strands. This is one of those books where you come to the end of a chapter and the author cuts to another part of the plot and you say "damn!" because you don't want to wait to see what happens. But then when the next chapter ends you say "damn!" again. Pay close attention, because everything that Atkinson reveals that seems to be a throwaway just to advance characterization comes back to play important parts in the plot. There are reversals, revelations, and wrecks right up to the last page. But the plot is not the best part of the book. The strongest feature of the book is the characterization. The characters are vital, believable, and intensely interesting. Jackson Brodie returns from Atkinson's two earlier books, and Louise Monroe from her last, with two more people added who are just as absorbing. Atkinson's characters are all beset with the burden of horrible events in their past and struggling to survive in the present, and Atkinson's sympathy and care for these victims of human (and sometimes literal) train wrecks absorb the reader in their lives. In fact, even though the book ends with a completely satisfactory resolution of the plot, the book left me eager to read Atkinson's next in order to find out what happens in the lives of these people. Literary suspense series that carry the lives of the main characters from novel to novel have become common. There are many excellent practitioners out there, from Ed McBain to Tony Hillerman to Ian Rankin. With "When Will There Be Good News?" Kate Atkinson establishes herself as the best. As New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin said in her review, the book "shows off an imagination so active that `When Will There Be Good News?' can barely contain it." If you like literary suspense or just like good writing, do yourself a favor and read this book.