Every chapter is like a little novel. You're drawn into a world where coincidence lies at the very heart of this great writer's bag of tricks. Yes, there are many coincidences, but what a great loss it would be if they weren't there; the intertwining of past relationships, of past and present tragedies -- this is what makes this book so special.

And Reggie -- she's like a fairy tale come true. She's so small that no one can believe that she's sixteen, but she has the heart and soul of someone beyond all years. Her relationship with Jackson, which comes at the latter half of the book is as moving as her relationship to Sadie ( a very smart and loyal dog). There are many other characters that could be mentioned that are key to the story -- the cynical, down-at-herself Louise, the wonderful Joanna, playing a role for thirty years, etc. But this is, in essence, a suspense novel and it build to a tremendous climax. Yes, at some point and in some lives, there is some good news, but not for most of us.

Atkinson is fast becoming a favorite of mine. Her writing is outstanding, and her humor is genius.

This was my favorite Brodie novel to date. What I admire so much about this book, is that Atkinson didn't fall into the trap that many authors do when writing a series - turning out the same book again and again. The writing was top notch, and the story engrossing.

When Will There Be Good News was full of the complexity and detail that made Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel such a great read. There were a lot of characters, but they were fascinating and likeable, and there were a lot of threads to the story which were woven together excellently.

I hope Atkinson turns out some non-Brodie fiction again in the future, but I will eagerly await the next installment in the series as well.

Kate Atkinson has found her true niche. She writes like nobody else -- it's astounding how she can get into the minds of so many disparate people, tell the story from so many vantages, and despite leaving some questions unanswered, manage to bring it all together in a satisfying whole. She challenges the reader to fill in some gaps. While there are dark aspect to this story, there are as many that are hilarious, and Atkinson's accurate ear for dialogue make for a lively read. This is not Scottish noir, such as the Glaswegian novels of Denise Mina, nor are they police procedurals, such as the series by Ian Rankin (great to think of Inspectors Rebus and Monroe on the same force), but Atkinson is on her way to a franchise that is truly original where past histories and their collisions in the present dramatically affect the future.

I just finished reading When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, the latest installment in her Jackson Brodie detective saga, and it was terrific! I have greatly enjoyed all three of the Brodie novels.

There are several story lines and a number of characters, but at the center of the book is a question - how do people go on after something truly horrific happens to them? Joanna Hunter is a successful physician and a devoted mother; but she is also the survivor of the murder of her mother and her two siblings, and the murderer is about to be released from prison. There are other women in danger, too, including a truly amazing 16 year old orphan. There's a train wreck, and a woman that Jackson is very attracted to, and confusion of identities. If this sounds rather Gothic, I suppose it is (astounding things are always happening to Brodie), but it's grounded in realistic human emotion.

If you like mysteries, you should read this book. If you like a good story with great insight into character, you should definitely read this book - but read the other two Brodie novels first!

Happy Reading!

The Book Goddess
[...]

I want more Reggie Chase!!! Kate Atkinson is a witty genius when creating characters that amuse, touch and STICK WITH YOU. I was already hooked on Jackson Brodie and now we have young beleaguered Reggie Chase to know and love and worry about. I hope Kate will bring her back in future novels (hint! hint!)

Third of a series of "sort-of" mystery novels set in Scotland and England, "When Will There Be Good News?" is the best and the wryest. It's not so much plot driven, and if you just can't suspend your disbelieve for some unbelievable coincidences, well, maybe this isn't the series for you, but if you CAN, you will be richly rewarded with a panoply of well drawn characters and, despite some of the horrible happenings, humor at every turn.

I'll be pre-ordering Kate Atkinson's next novel...I hope to re-meet Reggie there, but even if I don't, I know I will meet someone else to love.

Kate Atkinson is such a great writer that her characters not only live in her book but jumped out and walked around my house while I was reading this book. Although it takes a while to set up the story once it starts unfolding, it's like a roller coaster ride. You literally can not put the book down because you just NEED to see what's going to happen next. I think it's her best book yet.

This is the 3rd book in the Jackson Brodie - retired policeman series - but it is much more than that.
I would recommend these to be read in order - this is similar to Tony Hillerman's in that there is a continuing development of the main character and certain other persons and that adds to the enjoyment. I would say that Brodie and the associated characters play an even bigger roll in the stories than do Hillerman's - but with both, it seems as if we have a continuing relationship with these people who seem very real and worthy of involvement with.
These books are not for everyone - for one thing, a continuing theme is that of the violent deaths of family members and the difficulties of the survivors - from Jackson's own - to just about every "case" that he deals with. The title gives you an idea that there isn't often "good news" in these stories, but to me they are very compelling and some of the people are so believable that you really care how they get on with their lives.
Atkinson continues to write in the very same manner as in the first two - she tells multiple stories - going from one to the next with no explanation of the connections between the different streams. You only learn them much later. Some may not like this but I think the wondering and guessing adds to my enjoyment.
Most of the unanswered questions get resolved - although some are quite surprising and unexpected - and there are sufficient unresolved issues with Brodie so that there is plenty of room for the next story to begin.
I really don't like to tell details in these books - I prefer to find out what happens as it happens and that it be a surprise - so I just say - If you like the first one - Case History - you will like this one too.
I wouldn't mind if the next stories weren't quite so grim - but I will look forward to anything Atkinson writes.

Coincidence as defined by Webster "the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection." Kate Atkinson is a perfectionist when it comes to coincidence. Her mystery thrillers are made of such. Into each one she weaves a story that grabs us and soon we are ensconced in the telling of the tale.

How to describe the beginning? A full cut madness that results in a family torn apart, one little girl, Joanna survives. She becomes a physician, a caring person with a husband and a baby son. Her Nanny is a young girl named Reggie. Reggie without family except for an outlaw brother, and the family she wants is with Joanna. Jackson Brodie, a private investigator embarking on a train trip to London, after traveling to Edinburgh to ascertain if he has a son. The train runs off its track and after almost bleeding to death he is saved by Reggie. The investigating office is Louise, an old friend to Brody. Louise has also brought news to Joanna. Coincidence? You decide.

One of the most interesting aspects of reading a Kate Atkinson novel is her mission to bring us the reason for living. How and why do we go on after trauma and grief. What do we do when we find the person we are married to may be the wrong one. When our loved ones die how do we go on? How do we know we have found what we need in life?

This is the third novel with Louise and Jackson Brodie as main characters. We know do we not that they are meant for each other? But Kate Atkinson seems to knock off the men in these women's lives. Why is that? Will Jackson Brodie and Louise find true happiness? I think not and that is not just a coincidence!

Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-08-08

One Good Turn: A Novel

Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel

A MUST read!! I have read all of her Jackson Brodie series (this is # 3), and this did not disappoint! I think it was even better than her 1st 2 ("Case Histories" and "One Good Turn") This is a page-turner with lovable, memorable characters!
Atkinson does it again with her ability to make you really care about her characters and TIES THEM ALL TOGETHER neatly and suspensefully. Loved seeing more of Chief Inspector Louise! Reggie, Dr. Hunter, Jackson...they all made me smile. Despite a horrific 1st chapter, dark, sad, tragic; the rest of the book was delightful!!
I also highly recommend "Behind the Scenes at the Museum", and I plan on reading "Human Croquet" and "Emotionally Weird" next!!
Can't wait for the next Jackson Brodie installment!! BRAVO!!!!!!!!

I read Case Histories, One Good Turn, and now When Will There Be Good News. My favorite by far is When Will There Be Good News. The book is wonderful, suspenseful, and a fun read. I want more, and soon!

When Will There Be Good News? is an outstanding book of this genre... I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Atkinson's first two books in the Jackson Brodie series and found this to be her best so far. She is a skillful writer who weaves into her plot just the right amount of mystery, drama and humor. I actually listened to the CD version of this particular book read by Ellen Archer and found Archer's impeccable Scottish accent added a great deal to the authenticity of the characters and my listening pleasure. I can't wait for the next book in the series for Ms. Atkinson seems to have left the door open for another!

Kate Atkinson's most recent novels have seemed, on the surface of things, like a radical departure for a Whitbread Award-winning novelist whose previous works were noted for their use of magical realism and their unusual family dynamics. With CASE HISTORIES, however, the first book featuring detective Jackson Brodie, Atkinson took her well-established skill at exploring characters and relationships, and applied it to an entirely new genre --- the mystery. Since then, with ONE GOOD TURN and now with WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, Atkinson continues to push the boundaries of the mystery genre, writing intricate, suspenseful character studies that are bound to appeal even to literary purists who would swear they had never read a mystery novel in their lives.

These three books are loosely interconnected, focusing at least in part on Brodie and Edinburgh police inspector Louise Monroe. In ONE GOOD TURN, the sexual tension that defined Jackson and Louise's interactions never came to fruition; in WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, readers will be intrigued to discover that both main characters, in the intervening months, have made very similar choices in their personal lives, choices that will continue to complicate their personal and professional relationships.

But, as with the previous titles in this series, the private detective and the police inspector are, unusually, hardly the most important characters in the novel. Instead, Atkinson introduces a good dozen characters, each of whom carries his or her own tale of love, loss and betrayal, and whose stories come together in remarkable and, at times, surprising ways.

Central to the story is Joanna Hunter, now a successful physician and new mother living in Edinburgh. As a child, however, Joanna gained notoriety for being the only survivor of a brutal triple murder that left her mother, older sister and baby brother dead. The killer was sentenced to life in prison, but after 30 years he's now out on parole, and Joanna is haunted by fears that the media --- and the assailant himself --- might find her and destroy the new life she's built for herself.

Part of that new life includes Joanna's husband Neil, a somewhat shady businessman with secrets of his own, and mother's helper Reggie (short for Regina), a teenager studying for her A-levels and adopting Joanna as a surrogate mother, since few people know that Reggie's own mother died more than a year ago. Her older brother Billy is up to no good, so when Joanna disappears, Reggie doesn't know where to turn.

That is, until she encounters Louise Monroe, who is investigating a suspicious fire at one of Neil's business establishments, and Jackson Brodie, whom Reggie meets by chance after he's been seriously injured in a brutal and bloody train derailment. Each of these three have their own reasons for delving into the mysteries that surround them.

Besides being passably engaging mysteries, Atkinson's latest novels are utterly engrossing joint character studies. As she develops each character independently, she also, increasingly, shows them in relation to one another, developing layers of interconnection that go beyond coincidence. Language also connects the subplots in playful ways. The themes of the book, however, are a good deal darker --- focusing on young women alone in the world, on the loneliness of those who find themselves still alive when everyone they love has died, on the difficulty of forming and maintaining relationships in a fundamentally flawed world.

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? offers sophisticated readers a mystery that stretches the boundaries of the genre, opening up the story to provide portraits of a community of sorts, united by proximity and by loss.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

After having heard rave reviews of Kate Atkinson's suspense novels, I decided to give the first, Case Histories a try. I thought Atkinson was a talented writer, but felt the book had been over-hyped; I was expecting the best suspense novel I had ever read, and it certainly wasn't that. Since then, I've seen Atkinson's books here and there, and have wanted to try another one to discern why people loved her books so much. When Miriam at Hachette Book Group offered me the chance to review When Will There Be Good News?, I got that chance.

When Will There Be Good News? is the third in a series of books about Jackson Brodie, a former police officer-turned-private investigator. As I mentioned, I've read the first, Case Histories, but haven't read the middle novel, One Good Turn. However, I didn't feel as if I was missing too much; these books seem to be able to function as stand alone novels.

I'm glad to say that I very much enjoyed When Will There Be Good News? Atkinson's ability to juggle multiple storylines and flawlessly weave them together is impressive; I have to wonder how she is able to keep it all straight while she is writing! She also fleshes out her characters very well; the reader can identify with each and understand their thoughts and motivations. Atkinson's writing is clear and sharp; it is easy to fall into and spend the entire afternoon reading one of her books.

I can't really say that When Will There Be Good News? is any better than Case Histories, yet I enjoyed reading it much more. I think that's because I don't see Atkinson's novels as works of suspense; they are definitely mysteries, and there are elements of suspense contained within, but they are not suspense novels. In my mind, suspense novels are the mass market paperback suspense/thriller books; Atkinson's work is so much more. It is more literary and more personal. But that also has its downsides as well; the story doesn't move quickly. It takes a long time to set up (which was my problem with Case Histories) and the multiple storylines are difficult to juggle. I think I went into Case Histories expecting an easy read; I didn't realize that reading the book would make me use my brain!

When Will There Be Good News? is an interestingly crafted novel that is so much more than a suspenseful mystery. Atkinson confronts the reader with tragedy and with the ongoing struggle of life, presented through multiple storylines seamlessly woven together into a coherent whole.

I loved this book, couldn't put it down once starting it. Kate Atkinson writes so beautifully, hope it won't be another year before we can get the next one. The structure is flawless.

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? (Pol Proc-Jackson Brodie-England-Cont) - Ex
Atkinson, Kate - 3rd in Jackson Brodie series
Doubleday, 2008, UK Hardcover - ISBN: 9780385608015

First Sentence: The heat rising up from the tarmac seemed to get trapped between the thick hedges that towered above their heads like battlements.

Dr. Joanna Hunter (nee' Mason) is the only survivor of an attack that killed her mother, sister and brother. Now, thirty years later, the man responsible has been released from prison. Ex-detective Jackson Brodie, the one to find young Joanna after the attack, is traveling by train when it derails. Sixteen-year-old Reggie, although she looks to be only 12 but has an old soul, is a mother's help for Joanna's baby, Gabriel, and is being tutored by Ms. MacDonald in exchange for errands. Ms. MacDonald's property backs onto a railway line. The lives of these four people intersect in a completely unexpected manner.

What an unusual and wonderful book! The plot is not always easy to follow, nor is it always easy to keep the characters straight, but it has some of the best dialogue I've ever read and philosophical insights that made me pause. It had a captivating beginning where I was drawn into the sights, smells and sounds only to be followed by the terror and regret of the scene.

The main characters were wonderful and fully-developed through the course of the story. Reggie--"...Reggie's life was like the Ilian plain, littered with the dead."--, in particular, is an absolute marvel and I really thought of this as her story to the point where I didn't want it to end and I do want to know what happens to her in the future. She became just that real.

The author provides an excellent sense of place, but it is absolutely the characters that drive this story. There are a lot of coincidences--"A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen."--but they play into the story and life is full of coincidences.

This book is not for everyone; some might find the style confusing or slow. On one hand, I would not want to be a character in this story as there are more dead people surrounding the characters than I believe I've ever read. On the other there were times I laughed out loud, mainly due to the author's wonderful dialogue. It's of the level where you want to read it aloud to others. I do wish I had learned Latin, but the internet is very useful.

I've not read the previous two books in this series and felt no lack of them for knowing the characters or plot in this book, but I certainly do want to go back and read them for the pure joy of indulging in Ms. Atkinson's writing.

When Joanna Mason was six years old she witnesses an act so horrendous that no little girl should ever have to see. Joanna was the sole survivor of her family. Her mother, sister and brother were all murdered. Now thirty years later, the man who took Joanna's family from her has been released from prison.

Reggie is the nanny for Dr. Hunter. Reggie and Dr. Hunter have a really good relationship, so when one day Dr. Hunter disappears, Reggie worries but it seems that Reggie is the only one that is concerned about Dr. Hunter.

Then there is Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, she is on a mission to locate a missing person. Louise Monroe did not expect to see Jackson Brodie, a longtime friend. It seems Jackson Brodie has a mission of his own to accomplish. Before he can complete it, Brodie has a fatal accident.

There was a good connection with the characters, which helped me to stay interested in this book till the end. When Will There Be Good News? is the third book in this series to feature Jackson Brodie. I have to admit that When Will There Be Good News? is the first book Jackson Brodie book I have read. I thought it was a well-written novel. This story can also be read as a stand alone book. Kate Atkinson added some nice twists in the story line at just the right times. This story had a lot of depth in it. The lesson learned was that you may have made many mistakes in your life but when you are handed a second chance in live it is about how you make the most of it that really counts. For anyone who is looking for a change of pace in their everyday typical reading should give Kate Atkinson a try.

"Run, Joanna. Run." So begins this riveting novel, a small girl witness to a harrowing crime that, thirty years later, once more intrudes upon the security of an innocent victim who has remade the past into a sustainable present. On a jagged trajectory, a convicted criminal is released, a former cop accidentally detours into Edinburgh, a train crash and a rendezvous with fate and a sixteen-year-old mother's helper clings desperately to the only "family" she has left. Atkinson threads lives together in a complicated pattern, a multi-colored skein that winds through connecting stories, each critical to the whole. Seemingly compartmentalized, in time the random associations prove cleverly orchestrated, one with another, from Dr. Jo Hunter and her helper, Reggie, to Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe and Jackson Brodie (from a previous novel, One Good Turn), even the incarcerated Andrew Decker, released after thirty years, his intentions for the future a cipher.

The author's unusual talent perfectly lends itself to a style of assembled perspectives, each protagonist caught up in personal circumstances, yet all routed to a final denouement. Atkinson is a facile puppet master, moving her pawns purposefully toward the final confrontation, as devastating as the opening chapter of the novel. The characters are wonderfully human, plagued with self-doubts and festering fears, most touched by the untimely, sometimes violent death of loved ones. For all the brisk application to the business of living, the shadowed ghosts of lost loved ones hover significantly, reminding us of the precious moments too often forgotten or left unsavored. This juxtaposition of life and death creates the exquisite tension that drives the story, the threat waiting in the wings for a random cue. A technique that sometimes irritated me in One Good Turn lends this tale a fragmented urgency.

There is class-consciousness coexisting with professionalism, the security of material goods and the paucity of poverty, all of it irrelevant in the face of death, the great leveler.
Still Reggie and Dr. Hunter are at the heart of all, the girl clinging to her employer and chubby baby as family in a hard world, Jo Hunter creating a safe place far from her traumatic childhood but is delivered into danger by the actions of a foolish man. That violence should interfere with best laid plans is the nature of Atkinson's novel: expect the unexpected, a litany of "the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time". DCI Monroe is another study in character, a bundle of contradictions between her obsession with "my ladies" (her crime case victims) and the certainly that she is a Bad Wife. Sampling bits of these odd pairings throughout the novel, the author blends them into seamless whole; even when the plot stretches unbelievably, it is engaging and compelling. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

Shana's Review:

When Will There Be Good News? is nothing short of a delightful read. Atkinson gives us a sumptuous combination of wonderful well-developed characters, an engaging plot line, and the prose that I am quickly coming to expect of her - clean, subtle, and smart.

The novel is narrated alternately and in the third person by Jackson Brodie, Reggie Chase, and Louise Monroe. I quickly fell in love with all three. Incidentally, I have not read Atkinson's previous two novels featuring Jackson Brodie and did not feel this hindered my enjoyment of the story in any way.

Atkinson's skill as a writer shows in the adept way in which she ties disparate characters and story lines together. In the beginning, I couldn't fathom how this would happen, but when it did, I was amazed at how right it felt.

I would categorize When Will There Be Good News? as literary suspense. There were several questions that were not answered until the end. What is most amazing about Atkinson is that she gives us an intricately woven story but it doesn't feel complicated. Everything seems very ordinary, yet lovely, and brilliant, and even comic. I love that Atkinson's books are sprinkled with words that are unique to 'British English,' but not overly so.

Very rarely do I read a book that makes me want to buy up all an author's previous novels and devour them as soon as possible, but Kate Atkinson is quickly becoming this author to me. First, I was wowed by Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and now When Will There Be Good News? has completely captivated me and taken my adoration of this author up yet another notch.

(4.5 stars) Not a traditional mystery, Kate Atkinson's third Jackson Brodie novel grows instead out of the terrible traumas that children and young people must endure when people they love die violently. So marked are they by their sudden tragedies, that they never really escape their pasts, and spend the rest of their lives wondering "when will there be good news." Five separate plot lines evolve and begin to overlap here, and in each of these plots the main characters are all needy people hiding an inner loneliness from which they would like to escape. In the first plot, Joanna Mason Hunter is a physician living in Edinburgh, the happily married mother of a one-year-old, a woman who appears to have it all, but thirty years ago, she escaped a slashing attack which murdered her mother, sister, and baby brother. Though she seems to have put her past to rest, the murderer of her family is about to be released from jail.

Joanna's "mother's help" is Reggie Chase, a sixteen-year-old fending for herself in a rundown apartment that she shares with her delinquent brother. Reggie adores her job--and Joanna, who has no idea that Reggie's mother has died traumatically over a year ago. Jackson Brodie, a former police detective and a lead character in Case Histories: A Novel and One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery, is newly married for the third time, estranged from his twelve-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and prohibited from seeing the two-year-old he believes to be his son with his former girlfriend.

While working on a case in England, Brodie takes the wrong train and ends up in Edinburgh, where a crash near the house occupied by babysitter Reggie Chase brings Reggie and Brodie into contact. Meanwhile, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, a former girlfriend of Jackson Brodie, has also come to Edinburgh, to warn Joanna that the killer of her family has been released. In a final subplot, Joanna's husband Neil Hunter is in debt and in trouble with criminals, and Reggie, the babysitter, has found the house empty when she arrived to babysit. She is convinced that Joanna and the baby are missing and probably dead.

Atkinson's narrative is enhanced by her skillful pacing as she introduces new elements and surprises, and she is especially adept at individualizing her characters. Through flashbacks, she compares and contrasts their past and present lives, and the reader comes to "know" them. Connected thematically by their yearning for loving relationships, they are eventually connected through the plot's complications and mysteries. Ironies abound, and mistaken identities create some bizarre and sometimes darkly humorous scenes. Coincidence plays an important role in resolving the novel in dramatic fashion, and though no one will believe that these twists and turns are remotely realistic, they are great fun and completely consistent with the ebullient story-telling that Atkinson has made her signature. n Mary Whipple

Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel
Human Croquet: A Novel
Emotionally Weird: A Novel
Not the End of the World
Abandonment

"Case Histories" was one of the best suspense novels I have read in the last few years. However, "When Will There Be Good News?" blows the doors off Atkinson's earlier work. With this book, Atkinson establishes herself as the absolute best writer of literary suspense working today, and fulfills the promise of literary suspense by writing a novel that can stand comparison with the finest straight literary fiction, reminding us that she started her career by winning the prestigious Whitbread Prize for ambitious literary work.

The plot crackles with excitement, jumping from one to another of her four interlocking strands. This is one of those books where you come to the end of a chapter and the author cuts to another part of the plot and you say "damn!" because you don't want to wait to see what happens. But then when the next chapter ends you say "damn!" again. Pay close attention, because everything that Atkinson reveals that seems to be a throwaway just to advance characterization comes back to play important parts in the plot. There are reversals, revelations, and wrecks right up to the last page.

But the plot is not the best part of the book. The strongest feature of the book is the characterization. The characters are vital, believable, and intensely interesting. Jackson Brodie returns from Atkinson's two earlier books, and Louise Monroe from her last, with two more people added who are just as absorbing. Atkinson's characters are all beset with the burden of horrible events in their past and struggling to survive in the present, and Atkinson's sympathy and care for these victims of human (and sometimes literal) train wrecks absorb the reader in their lives.

In fact, even though the book ends with a completely satisfactory resolution of the plot, the book left me eager to read Atkinson's next in order to find out what happens in the lives of these people.
Literary suspense series that carry the lives of the main characters from novel to novel have become common. There are many excellent practitioners out there, from Ed McBain to Tony Hillerman to Ian Rankin. With "When Will There Be Good News?" Kate Atkinson establishes herself as the best. As New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin said in her review, the book "shows off an imagination so active that `When Will There Be Good News?' can barely contain it."

If you like literary suspense or just like good writing, do yourself a favor and read this book.

(4.5 stars) Not a traditional mystery, Kate Atkinson's third Jackson Brodie novel grows instead out of the terrible traumas that children and young people must endure when people they love die violently. So marked are they by their sudden tragedies, that they never really escape their pasts, and spend the rest of their lives wondering "when will there be good news." Five separate plot lines evolve and begin to overlap here, and in each of these plots the main characters are all needy people hiding an inner loneliness from which they would like to escape. In the first plot, Joanna Mason Hunter is a physician living in Edinburgh, the happily married mother of a one-year-old, a woman who appears to have it all, but thirty years ago, she escaped a slashing attack which murdered her mother, sister, and baby brother. Though she seems to have put her past to rest, the murderer of her family is about to be released from jail.

Joanna's "mother's help" is Reggie Chase, a sixteen-year-old fending for herself in a rundown apartment that she shares with her delinquent brother. Reggie adores her job--and Joanna, who has no idea that Reggie's mother has died traumatically over a year ago. Jackson Brodie, a former police detective and a lead character in Case Histories: A Novel and One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery, is newly married for the third time, estranged from his twelve-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and prohibited from seeing the two-year-old he believes to be his son with his former girlfriend.

While working on a case in England, he takes the wrong train and ends up in Edinburgh, where he is injured in a train crash near the house where babysitter Reggie Chase is staying. Meanwhile, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, a former girlfriend of Jackson Brodie, has come to Edinburgh to warn Joanna that the killer of her family has been released. In a final subplot, Joanna's husband Neil Hunter is in debt and in trouble with criminals, and Reggie, the babysitter, has found the house empty when she arrived to babysit. She is convinced that Joanna and the baby are missing and probably dead.

Atkinson's narrative is enhanced by her skillful pacing as she introduces new elements and surprises, and she is especially adept at individualizing her characters. Through flashbacks, she compares and contrasts their past and present lives, and the reader comes to "know" them. Connected thematically by their yearning for loving relationships, they are eventually connected through the plot's complications and mysteries. Ironies abound, and mistaken identities create some bizarre and sometimes darkly humorous scenes. Coincidence plays an important role in resolving the novel in dramatic fashion, and though no one will believe that these twists and turns are remotely realistic, they are great fun and completely consistent with the ebullient story-telling that Atkinson has made her signature. n Mary Whipple

Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel
Human Croquet: A Novel
Emotionally Weird: A Novel
Not the End of the World
Abandonment

Read the first twelve pages of When Will There Be Good News? By Kate Atkinson, and I predict that you will continue reading to the last page. The story begins with a tale of childhood and an explosion of violence, and continues years later, as the present intersects with the past.
Sixteen year old Reggie steals the show with her charm, wit and courage ; Jackson Brodie, Detective Inspector Louise Monroe, and Dr. Joanna Hunter have key roles to play, and charm of their own.
Several stories interweave and the reader needs to pay attention. David Needler is a violent husband, Neil Hunter a cypher of a husband, and Andrew Decker a madman, all with key roles to play.
Sadie the dog plays her part, as does Reggie's criminal brother Billie, and her eccentric tutor and friend Ms. MacDonald. All in all, a satisfying and well written novel.
The charismatic Jackson Brodie starred in two earlier novels, and now I am drawn to read her other books.