Pun Salad

That's Kate Atkinson asking the musical question, in the third entry in her Jackson Brodie series. Brodie is an ex-cop, ex-private detective, living off a fortune bequeathed him in the first book. And he's mostly a guy to whom things happen, instead of making them happen himself. Since I am now a Brodie Old Hand, I can add "as usual" to that observation.

Also as usual: you don't want to be any of the book's characters. Their lives are full of death (by murder, accident, suicide, illness, …). Their familial relationships (among the survivors) are forever on the rocks. It's kind of a miracle I was able to keep reading amidst all the bleakness. (Amazingly, in between all the mayhem and madness, Atkinson can be very funny, too.)

It's an intricate plot, with a lot of moving pieces. Thirty years back, a madman murders nearly an entire family. The survivor grows up to be a doctor, married to a dodgy businessman, with a cute baby. She hires 16-year-old Regina ("Reggie") as a nanny. (Dead mom, mentally-ill guardian.) Reggie's older brother is a criminal, and his dealings threaten to spill into Reggie's life. Plus which, the doc goes missing with the baby and Reggie seems to be the only one concerned about that. And that madman has just been released from prison.

And Jackson has a new wife, although he's still kind of obsessed with a lady cop he met in a previous book. Who's also married, but still has feelings for…

Oh, and a horrific train crash. Like I said, there's a lot going on. Atkinson is a fine writer, both in her prose style, and her ability to keep all those plot-plates spinning on their sticks.