She Treads Softly: Big Sky

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Big Sky

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
Little Brown and Company: 6/25/19
eBook review copy; 400 pages
ISBN-13: 9780316523097
Jackson Brodie Series #5

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson is the very highly recommended fifth book in the Jackson Brodie series. It is good to see him back, working as a private investigator in a seaside village.

Coincidences are the key to a great return of Jackson Brodie. As with the last Brodie novel (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011) there is a large cast of characters and a whole lot going on that has little to do with Brodie - until it does. Brodie is part time father to his son, Nathan, and caring for his aging lab while on a case documenting the actions of a cheating spouse when he gets tangled up in a cold case involving human trafficking and the sexual abuse of children that isn't so cold after all. DC Reggie Chase returns, working with DC Ronnie Dibicki

There are complete stories and background information involving all of the characters that eventually all intertwine into a complicated plot. There are some great characters here, some villains, but others that are simply unknowingly entangled in the mystery. Harry is a great character, and it will surprise you how much you will like Crystal. Atkinson slowly introduces her characters, develops them, and then allows them to interact and connects all the pieces of the mystery together.

This is an exceptional, well-written mystery with multiple storylines, complicated well-developed characters and an intricate plot. In some ways I think it is better to read Big Sky with little background information and just experience it for yourself. At first you may not know how all these random people and stories are all connected, but as more information is disclosed and characters begin to interact, it will begin to become more apparent and the action and pace of the novel will escalate.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Little Brown and Company.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.