Case Histories is a
sprawling novel with many characters, full of death and murder.  The reader is introduced to several families
and comes to see the internal intrigues, lies, and disappointments that
occurred both before and after those families suffered a loss.  Ultimately, the book takes a positive view
of the possibility of overcoming the damage and hurt caused by violent and
sudden deaths.

The book is set in Cambridge, England.  The main protagonist is Jackson Brodie, in
his forties, divorced, and father of an eight-year-old girl.  Brodie used to be in the army and the
police, but now he is a private investigator. 
He is approached by two rather eccentric sisters, Julia and Amelia Land,
whose father has just died.  In his
desk, they discover a toy belonging to their baby sister Olivia, who
disappeared in the middle of the night thirty-five years ago.  The sisters want him to investigate the
mystery.  Julia and Amelia are wonderful
characters, with very different personalities. 
Julia is highly sexual and provocative, while Amelia is depressed and
conventional, and the two of them work like a comedy duo.  At the funeral of their father, for whom
they felt no affection, they delight on their ability to just send him off
without ceremony, with just the two of them (dressed in bright colors) and
Brodie watching as the coffin disappears into the incinerator.  As they walk outside on the hot summer’s
day, Julia cheerfully comments, "Not as hot as where Daddy is at the
moment."

Another of Brodie’s clients is Theo
Wyre, whose 18-year-old daughter Laura was murdered ten years ago. She had just
finished high school and she had started work helping out at his law office,
when a knife-wielding maniac rushed in and slashed her throat and rushed
out.  The man was never caught.  Theo keeps one of the rooms in his house
devoted to clues in her murder, gathering piles of information.  Theo is naturally deeply unhappy, and he
whole life is centered around his dead daughter.  His other daughter moved to Canada and he never sees her.  He seems lost, and Brodie is not optimistic
about the chances of solving the case.

Atkinson shifts her perspective
from character to character, and also moves around in time, describing the
families when the original incidents took place.  She goes into Brodie’s own past, and his current fury at his
ex-wife and her new husband.  For much
of the novel, it seems that Brodie’s investigations are going nowhere and
nothing will come of them.  What’s more,
Brodie’s own future seems uncertain: not only has he suddenly taken up smoking
again after having quit for many years, but he is having serious dental
problems, and then it looks like someone is trying to kill him.  But Brodie turns out to be both competent
and lucky, and he uncovers the long-hidden secrets of the people he
encounters.  His own life starts to
improve and in some ways the cases he is investigating help him to come to terms
with the deaths in his own family.

The story follows most of the
conventions of mysteries, albeit with a rather more convoluted plot than most
murder mysteries.  Nevertheless, it has
a sense of unpredictability, and it is not a typical mystery novel.  Many of the characters make sudden choices,
unexpected even to themselves, which they then have to live with.  For some, this is a source of long-term
suffering, while for others, it is their salvation.  Many of the characters have deep secrets they keep from others,
and Atkinson is a little playful as to what these might be, slipping in a few
red herrings.  The novel ends a little
abruptly, with most problems resolved quite neatly, and readers may feel they
have to perform an inventory to make sure that every loose end has really been
tied up.  Brodie is a likable detective
and while his good fortune is startling, it is also pleasing.  Case Histories leaves you feeling
optimistic. 

© 2005 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved. 

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long
Island. He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His
main research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and
psychology.

Categories: Fiction