Book Review: Case Histories

I spent part of my last evening in New York at Barnes and Noble, browsing the aisles and talking myself out of a ruinous shopping spree. I could hear a devil (or angel?) on one shoulder whispering, "Go for it! It'll be a long time before you get another chance to pick from so many English language books! Haven't you always wanted to read this one? And that one's a classic, everyone should own a copy!"

Luckily, common sense prevailed: books are heavy, and since I'd succumbed to the argument before, over clothes, I already had a great deal to lug over. Besides, I told myself sternly, I should be reading German books (though I still haven't found Richard Scarry's Big Book of Deutschewörter, which is roughly where I ought to start). Plus, there's always the miracle of Amazon.com.

I did end up getting two novels, though. One is going to be a birthday present for Swissy Pie, so I won't spill the beans in case he drops by for a visit. The other one I purchased on the grounds I needed something for the plane ride: Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. An excellent decision, if I do say so myself, though my friend Dalia gets the credit for recommending it to me. If I hadn't been excessively sleepy from those two whiskey and tonics and a couple of follow-on glasses of wine, I would have stayed up the entire flight just to finish it.

The book is difficult to describe. Set primarily in Cambridge, England, it's technically a mystery - a mystery about multiple murders, at that. But it's far too literary to be associated with the predictible thrillers found on grocery store shelves. The writing is by turns spare and gritty, then lush and evocative, then humorous and ironic, as the point of view changes from one protagonist to another. And despite a large cast, the characters are mostly well-fleshed out, from the pathetically fat and unloved Amelia Land, sister to a girl who went missing decades ago, to the childish, bitter, yet oddly sympathetic private investigator Jackson Brodie. By the end, it's clear that the satisfaction of Case Histories doesn't derive from finding out whodunnit, but from examining the impact that deaths - particularly sudden, shocking ones - have on the survivors.

I could complain that the plot is driven by a few too many coincidences, or that the ending is simply too tidy. But those are small complaints for a novel that is, by and large, deeply satisfying.