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 studies. As she develops each character independently, she also, increasingly, shows them in relation to one another, developing layers of interconnection that go beyond coincidence. Language also connects the subplots in playful ways. The themes of the book, however, are a good deal darker --- focusing on young women alone in the world, on the loneliness of those who find themselves still alive when everyone they love has died, on the difficulty of forming and maintaining relationships in a fundamentally flawed world.
WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? offers sophisticated readers a mystery that stretches the boundaries of the genre, opening up the story to provide portraits of a community of sorts, united by proximity and by loss.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
