海角大神

[The Monitor occasionally reprints material from its archives. This book review originally ran on Sept. 6, 2008.] First, the bad news about Kate Atkinson鈥檚 When Will There Be Good News? The accompanying press release states this is the final book in her series about detective Jackson Brodie.

Now, the good news. It鈥檚 the most satisfying novel of Atkinson鈥檚 trilogy.

As with the previous two installments, 鈥淐ase Histories鈥� (2004) and 鈥淥ne Good Turn鈥� (2006), Atkinson鈥檚 latest mystery is the literary equivalent of an MC Escher drawing in its labyrinthine, yet holistic, architecture. Seemingly unrelated characters, even the most peripheral ones, are inextricably interlinked in a complex matrix.

The common denominator is that they鈥檙e each, in their own way, trying to flee the past. That may literally mean running away in the case of Joanna Hunter, an Edinburgh doctor who has disappeared with her young baby. She鈥檚 used to running. In the prelude, we discover that the fleet-footed Joanna was the only survivor of a brutal attack on her family by a crazed killer. (The downside of a book: You can鈥檛 shut your eyes during the harrowing passages.) Decades later, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe informs Hunter that the murderer has been paroled and is now missing. 鈥淚 might go away,鈥� responds Joanna. 鈥淓scape, for a bit, just until the fuss dies down.鈥�

But Regina 鈥淩eggie鈥� Chase, the household nanny, is convinced that her employer 鈥� more of a mother figure to her, really 鈥� hasn鈥檛 absconded of her own volition. Then again, as police detective Monroe observes, Reggie, may have an overactive imagination. After all, the 16-year-old high school dropout is constantly reading the classics and studying Latin with her tutor, the eccentric Ms. MacDonald. (In another of the novel鈥檚 mysteries, a bookworm of an altogether different sort has been carving hollow cavities in MacDonald鈥檚 books to hide something.)

Reggie, the novel鈥檚 most delightful invention, is infused with Dickensian pluck. Left alone and destitute following her mother鈥檚 accidental death, she tries to escape her underclass heritage by inventing a new life for herself. (Reggie, like all the protagonists, is all too aware of class differences 鈥� no wonder she admires Jean Renoir鈥檚 鈥�La R猫gle Du Jeu.鈥�)

奥丑别谤别鈥檚 Jackson Brodie in all this, you might ask? The detective who can鈥檛 resist helping people in spite of his cynical self 鈥� in a movie he鈥檇 be played by Sean Bean or David Morrissey 鈥� is en route to Edinburgh. Then, MacDonald does something that sucks the main characters into the same orbit, changing their lives forever. (I won鈥檛 spoil the details.) That includes Monroe, who is as much a loner as Brodie. The hard-bitten policewoman has immersed herself in her investigations to avoid returning home to a husband who makes her feel as constricted as a cellophaned mummy.

So far, so grim. Yet Atkinson鈥檚 book is surprisingly funny 鈥� it鈥檚 a comedy of terrors. Here鈥檚 why. Where many crime writers focus on plot engineering first, inserting avatarlike personas into the story-line mechanics almost as an after-thought, Atkinson builds her mysteries from the characters up. She meticulously sculpts such vivid inner lives for each protagonist 鈥� their every thought, from existential philosophizing to Seinfeld-like musings about everyday situations, are made privy to us. So when all the characters eventually meet, we intrinsically understand why their interactions are so tragicomic.

So much so, that during the final 100 pages, Atkinson clocks a high giggle-per-page ratio despite impending peril for at least one character.

At this point, the Scottish author has intertwined the disparate plot strands in such an ingenious fashion that it鈥檚 almost as if she鈥檚 effortlessly walking a tightrope while juggling and humming into a kazoo. Of course, no one could sustain such a feat forever, and Atkinson eventually drops a ball or two. Her two detectives, for instance, make uncharacteristic misjudgments that Atkinson tries to explain away by having them distracted by lovelorn impulses. And the fantastic coincidences eventually pile up like Tetris blocks.

No matter. 鈥淲hen Will There Be Good News?鈥� is so thoroughly entertaining that one is willing to buy Brodie鈥檚 frequent proclamation that, 鈥淎 coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.鈥� In Atkinson鈥檚 series, everything is connected to everything else in a Spinoza-like fashion. It just is. Thankfully, she offsets such tidy resolutions by leaving one or two characters with disheveled conclusions.

One begs Atkinson to reconsider ending the series here. It would be great news, indeed, if she were to pick up the pieces all over again.

Stephen Humphries is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.