Started Early, Took my Dog [Hardcover]

Kate Atkinson (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Doubleday (2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385608020
• ISBN-13: 978-0385608022
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,111,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kate Atkinson lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named Whitbread Book of the Year in the U.K. in 1995, and was followed by Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Not the End of the World, Case Histories and One Good Turn.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Early start and sustained effort needed, September 26, 2010

By 

Hande Z (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Started Early, Took My Dog (Kindle Edition)

This was a clever book with a clever, well-thought story and plot. It involved many characters, the main ones were Tracy Waterhouse, a policewoman who rescued a child, and Jackson Brodie, a private investigator who rescued a dog, and Matilda (Tilly) an old, senile actress who could hardly rescue herself. This is not an easy book to read, and certainly not one to read over weeks because one would lose focus and thus the connections that were to come together in the end. It was written with a stream-of-consciousness style of writing and so has a number of distractions thrown in which the reader has to figure out how they were relevant to the story. Furthermore, the author juxtaposed events so that one has to keep track of the dates in order to follow the clues and the story. I gave this book only three stars because it was not the kind of writing I enjoy reading; but to those who enjoy the challenge of a "warped" story and do not mind stream-of-consciousness narratives, they might give this 4 or 5 stars.

91 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "For the want of a nail..." - Atkinson is always a wonderful read, September 8, 2010

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Started Early, Took My Dog (Kindle Edition)

First Sentence: Leeds: `Motorway City of the Seventies'.

Spur of the moment decisions lead to life-altering consequences. A child and a dog link characters in an expected way that leads to injury and death.

Atkinson has created several mysteries within one story in this latest outing, and although Jackson is the continuing thread between the books, he is certainly not the only significant character.

One element I so enjoy about Atkinson's books is that her characters are somewhat abnormal for being no realistically normal. Brodie is an ex-cop, ex-PI with a number of failed or failing relationships. It is nice to learn much more about him and his background here. Tracy is a long way from being the attractive, sexy, young cop so common now. Tilly is an elderly actress with early dementia.

I find it almost impossible to describe this book. The writing is clever but without feeling contrived. Her voice and humor are delightful. There are coincidences, but they are deliberate and play upon the theme. The theme, which comes from the traditional poem "For want of a nail..." is brilliantly played out.

I did not find this the easiest book to read due to time and POV changes. It was a bit slow getting into, but it was never boring. I am always fascinated by Atkinson's writing and I love her titles. All I can say is that this is a book which can stand on its own and is very well worth reading.

STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG (PI-Jackson Brodie-England-Cont) - VG
Atkinson, Kate - 4th in series
Doubleday, ©2010, UK Hardcover - ISBN: 9780385608022

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Everyone has a killer inside them just waiting to get out, some more patient than others.", March 26, 2011

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Started Early, Took My Dog: A Novel (Hardcover)

(4.5 stars) However good Kate Atkinson's three previous Jackson Brodie novels have been, they were just the warm-up for this one. Though they are often called "mysteries," Atkinson's novels are far more character-driven than the norm, and more literary in execution-intriguing on several levels simultaneously. In this novel, Jackson Brodie becomes a broader character, his inner life at least as important as the plot with which it intersects. Brodie has always had a problem with alcohol and women, with whom he has always looked for escape from some of the underlying miseries of his life. Married twice and "almost married" to a woman who fleeced him, Brodie can be forgiven for being cynical about people and their motives. The one characteristic which keeps Brodie going is his outrage about the injustices he sees around him, with his strongest calumny directed toward those who take advantage of children.

In Started Early, Took My Dog, which takes place in Leeds, West Yorkshire, several plot lines begin before the entrance of Brodie. The starving, almost dead child of a prostitute is found in an apartment with the body of the mother in 1975, and the child is later adopted. The other story lines take place in the present. Two thugs have arranged to kidnap a child in Munich. A female former police superintendent in Leeds saves a child from being abused, then offers to buy the child from the prostitute who has been dragging her through the streets. A senile actress in a TV serial witnesses something she does not understand. Amid these beginning plot lines, Jackson Brodie sees a small dog being horribly abused by a muscleman and saves the dog, which quickly wiggles its way into his life and heart.

What follows is a complex story of identity, including Jackson Brodie's own identity, as characters who were orphaned and/or adopted try to understand the past and make connections. Brodie himself has never recovered from the death of his sister Niamh, one of several deaths which decimated his family before he had even reached his teen years. Jackson becomes involved in the search for truth regarding the other plot lineswhen he is hired to try to find the parents of one of these adoptees.

Atkinson's irrepressible humor comes through in her style: She includes more literary references per page, often humorously, than most other writers have in an entire novel. These fit into the narrative so smoothly that it is easy to overlook them. In one ten-page sequence near the beginning, for example, Atkinson gives brief quotations from Cormac McCarthy, Emily Dickinson (who seems to be a favorite throughout), and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and his Sonnet 73 on death. Birth, love, aging, and death are constant themes here as several adults, including Jackson Brodie, try to come to terms with their lives as children and find peace. Some, like Jackson Brodie, still have hope--"Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul/And sings the tune without the words/ and never stops--at all." (Emily Dickinson)

Jackson Brodie #1: Case Histories: A Novel
Brodie #2: One Good Turn: A Novel
Brodie #3: When Will There Be Good News?: A Novel