Customer Reviews

When Will There Be Good News?: A Novel

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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

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

I enjoyed Atkinson's prior novels (Case Histories and One Good Turn) and looked forward to her new work especially given that one of the key charismatic players in "One Good Turn" (Jackson Brodie) returns as a central figure in this story.

This story opens with a horrifying act of violence involving the family of 6-six year old Joanna, who survives and goes on to become a successful physician - with her own infant son to guard.

"The best days of her life had been when she was pregnant and the baby was still safe inside of her. Once you were out in the world, then the rain fell on your face and the wind lifted your hair and the sun beat down on you and the path stretched ahead of you and evil walked on it."

Sixteen-year-old Reggie works for Dr. Joanna Hunter as a nanny, caring for her infant son and her dog Sadie. Reggie determines that Joanna has turned up missing and alerts Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe (yes, the same Louise Monroe from One Good Turn) and in a coincidental meeting, engages Jackson Brodie in the missing persons search. After serving 30 years in prison, the murderer of Joanna's family is released and some believe he is related to Joanna turning up missing.

The chance connection between Jackson Brodie and Louise Monroe and the resultant relationship tension - is the highlight of this novel. Both jumped into separate marriages in haste (after they thought the other had chosen someone else) and now question the path they are on especially after the chance encounter.

"She (Louise) hadn't expected ever to hit forty and suddenly find herself in a two-car family, to be living in an expensive flat, to be wearing a rock the size of Gibraltar. Most people would see this as a goal or an improvement but Louise felt as if she might have taken the wrong road without even noticing the turning."

As the Guardian appropriately describes Atkinson's work, it is "funny, bracingly intelligent and delightfully prickly." An example:

"His Daughter (Jackson's) had recently announced her conversion to the vegetarian cause. In a word association test his automatic response to the word `lamb' would be `mint-sauce.' Marlee's would be `innocent.' The slaughter of. She was being brought up as an atheist, but she spoke the language of martyrs."

Overall assessment:
1)Atkinson shares some moving insights and passages as to surviving - life, death, tragedy, the past, present and future. Her prose is plain-spoken, colorful, funny and intelligent.

2) Atkinson's character and story construction involving Jackson and Louise Munro - have her at her best. Both are solid likeable characters even if they are searching and generally unhappy. Atkinson gets you into their minds as to what they are thinking and feeling with deep character insights and reflections on life, death, sorrow, regrets and losses. Reggie, one of the heroines in the story, on the other hand, was not all that believable.

3) The stage setting for the story takes a whopping 200 pages (1/2 of the book) and weaves back and forth - with multiple characters and plot lines. By the time the set up was done, I had lost substantial interest.

4) TOO MANY. Too many characters. Too many story lines - some of which converge elegantly - while others are hurried and thinly closed out. Too many coincidences - far too many to be believable. And, finally too many tragedies involving the principal characters. Novel may best be described as a "melee."

My 3 stars for this novel are for Atkinson's exceptionally clever characterization - her depiction and insights into life's struggles and tragedies woven into a crime fiction story - and that I found many passages to be mordantly funny.

Kate Atkinson has found her true niche. She writes like nobody else -- it's astounding how she can get into the minds of so many disparate people, tell the story from so many vantages, and despite leaving some questions unanswered, manage to bring it all together in a satisfying whole. She challenges the reader to fill in some gaps. While there are dark aspect to this story, there are as many that are hilarious, and Atkinson's accurate ear for dialogue make for a lively read. This is not Scottish noir, such as the Glaswegian novels of Denise Mina, nor are they police procedurals, such as the series by Ian Rankin (great to think of Inspectors Rebus and Monroe on the same force), but Atkinson is on her way to a franchise that is truly original where past histories and their collisions in the present dramatically affect the future.

I don't have much to add about this story that hasn't already been covered -- it's very good, with a twisty, surprising plot, and the kind of characters that readers easily care about. However, on Kindle, it was disappointing. If I am asked to pay for the electronic version of a book, I expect that some care will be taken in preparing it. I should not have to be interrupted every paragraph or two by unex-pected hyphena-tions that oc-cur for no reason in the middle of sen-tences (they are hard hyphenations left over from the paginated book version -- easy to clean out, but nobody bothered.) Also, there should not be unnecessary

spaces

and unnecessary tabs breaking up the page

so that I am completely dis-tracted and lose the story. It would be one thing if there were two or three of these scat-

tered throughout the novel, but these problems appear all over the book, every paragraph or two, dis-tracting me every time and exas-pera-ting me more and more until I could hardly concen-trate on the story well e-nough to enjoy what should have been a good read. This kind of thing makes me think twice about paying for Kindle reading material. Those who want my money should take reasonable care to pro-vide a carefully

produced product, or I'll just stop buying Kin-

dle books.

This is no cute little detective story where we kind of know what's going to happen in advance. This is a gritty, tough, realistic, sometimes funny and very touching story that spans thirty years. Here are some of my observations and reasons I think this is one of the best books of the year:

1. There are really four main characters, Jackson, our old friend from her past books, a 16 year old orphan and amazingly resourceful girl, a loving and devoted female MD who has gone through hell and survived and a somewhat crusty and yet excellent female detective who is trying hard to have a normal and proper life, yet can't quite get there. All of these characters have had difficult lives and backgrounds, death and suffering behind them, and yet each gets out there every day to do good things. We love each of them even though they are flawed, lie, hide things, have made bad marriage decisions, etc. At the same time, we have no idea if any of them will survive and make it whole through this grim set of circumstances.

2. We view the world and what's happening through the eyes of each of these characters from chapter to chapter. Along the way, we pick up information from each that starts to answer questions about the others and what may really be going on in the world. There is no speed reading here. There are little clues and hilarious and sometimes scary comments in the minds of each of the characters that will play out in the future. Along the way, there are many little old nursery rhymes and sometimes quotes from the bible or from other writers that play in each of their minds in a very clever way. Sometimes these little quotes foretell the future or put us into a gloomy mood that death has happened or is just around the corner.

3. I especially loved the character of Reggie, the 16 year old orphan girl. She lives in such a horrible world of lies, and she is so clever and resourceful and intelligent. And yet she doesn't know when to ask adults for help or what she can or can't admit to those few competent people around her and she's barely surviving. Remember the little girl in "Lonesome Dove" who races around on her horse and is so likeable? And then Blue Duck kills her?

4. The book comes together well at the end along with some tragedy, some redemption and in the case of Jackson Brodie, a hugely disappointing and yet somehow funny and appropriate ending. Nothing works quite like I though it would. But as I put the book down, I had a lump in my throat and I can't wait for the next book. Excellent work, Kate.

Atkinson is one of the very best authors presently working in the English (or Scots) language, and also one of the most overlooked by the general public, even though she's won a Whitbread. Of her six previous novels, the two most recent, _Case Histories_ and _One Good Turn,_ are her best, and that's saying something. And this one is even better. Jackson Brodie, the hero (or at least the protagonist) of both of them, and now of this one, is an ex-Yorkshireman, ex-military policeman, ex-civilian cop, and now ex-private detective living quietly (or as quietly as he can manage) on an inheritance of appalling size that he knows he didn't deserve. He's been married twice, with a long-term girlfriend in-between, and has a daughter he's sure of and a son he isn't. Having been snooping about in the Midlands and inadvertently boarding a train headed in the wrong direction, he finds himself returning not to London but to his own northern past, where he gets dumped into the middle of several developing mysteries involving the disappeared Dr. Hunter (lone survivor of a small mass murder three decades ago), the present-day trials and tribulations of Reggie Chase (sixteen-year-old self-taught classicist and recent orphan), Neil Hunter (ne'er-do-well entrepreneur from Glasgow and possible insurance arsonist), and DCI Louise Monroe (unhappily wed to a terrific husband), whose lot it is to try to sort out all the tangled skeins. There are several themes laced throughout the multiply intertwined narratives, especially violent and/or dreary death -- by murder (lots of those, over lots of years), by railway carnage (same root as "carnival"), by bizarre misadventure (foreign swimming pools), and by ordinary inability (throwing one's car over an embankment). Many of these events are also recursive, with strangers who have acquaintances in common ending up with each other's wallets and lives. All the characters, including the single-scene walk-ons, are so clearly drawn you can hear their accents, thanks to the author's extraordinary command of dialogue and description. The omnipresent humor (not all of it the gallows variety) is very British and very funny. And the convoluted mystery(s) is well constructed, too. But this isn't really a mystery novel. It's a fascinating and multifaceted view of the lives of a group of intriguing and mostly (usually) sympathetic people caught up in the minutiae of life and trying their best to survive. And I find it amazing that each of the three novels in this set (so far) is even better than its predecessor. Brilliant work.

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 was external, the wreckage was tangible, it was outside the room he was sleeping in."

Because this book involves a mystery...several mysteries, really, I've been trying to carefully pick quotes that are not spoilers. And - I just realized that in my review - I never really even touched on the plot.

I suppose it's because this book was about the characters and the writing...and the feeling of the book for me. Which for me was enough - more than enough. To enjoy, to re-read, to savor.

I just LOVE the way Atkinson takes all these different characters and their different stories and little by little the become connected and intertwined until I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to find out how it's all going to come together. The beginning of this book took a little patience while the reader gets to know the different characters but there came a point in the book when I was like, 'kids, you're on your own for dinner tonight because I just can't put this book down right now.' The reason I bumped this down from 5 stars to 4 was because I felt the ending was kind of abrupt and too quick and easy after everything that happened.

I completely recommend this book however . . . the characters of Reggie, Jackson, and Louise are some of Atkinson's best and there were many surprising laugh-out-loud moments in this very intense book. Loved it!

I thought Kanigan's review right on target. Atkinson is a good writer, but trying to be too innovative, to put it in a nice way. I love mystery novels and ones that focus on relationships, but I couldn't finish this book for the following reasons:

1. The first 3 chapters seem to have nothing to do with one another, and by the time I had read more than 50 pages, I had lost patience and interest.

2. One of the key characters as a child reappears as an adult. Atkinson give you a couple of clues if you are reading carefully. That was fine, but I found the personality and character of the child completely different from her adult persona, and I found this unbelievable.

3. I haven't read the first two novels and found this one terribly confusing.

4. There are too many coincidences and similar experiences by different people. I like books that are more realistic.

5. There is too much extraneous material and redundant information.

If you want a good mystery, read P.D. James, or is a good book about relationships, Erica James.