Breakaway Books

Authored by Kate Atkinson; Published 2004; Mystery

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

Case Histories was not at all what I was expecting out of a mystery. Light on investigation, light on tension—lots of character texture.

Case Histories follows Jackson Brodie, a retired inspector turned private detective, as he investigates several cold cases—the disappearance of one little girl, the murder of a teenage office worker, and an apparent crime of passion committed by a young wife. What struck me first about the novel was how very annoying the characters were, how I would be rolling my eyes at many of them. To be fair, Brodie himself finds several of the characters annoying, but that didn’t make it more pleasant to read the first third or so of the book.

I was a little surprised to discover that there was almost no description of Brodie actually unraveling the mysteries. It seemed as if the cases unwound on their own, and Brodie merely witnessed all the pieces falling into place as an unknown assailant tried to murder him. It left me feeling somewhat unfulfilled, unable to piece anything together on my own. Even the attempts on Brodie’s life seemed somehow uneventful and anticlimactic.

That being said, as a novel rather than a mystery, it did hold a certain appeal. The prose tended toward stream of consciousness, with frequent tangents taking the reader every which way—but what a stream it was. The writing was unquestionably beautiful, and the cases were interlaced with a level of subtlety that felt realistic, mimicking how lives can touch each other just at the edges, and be forever connected. 

As a mystery, it was not my favorite. As a novel, it’s a good read, provided the characters don’t drive you up the wall!