Review: Started Early, Took My Dog

Started Early, Took My Dog is the fourth and latest in Kate Atkinson's series of super smart mysteries featuring Jackson Brodie. Like the other Brodie books, this one involves several disparate stories that more or less come together. Like the other Brodie books, and her literary fiction, Atkinson's droll commentary and crackling wit make every page a delight.

The theme of Jackson trying to rescue "lost" girls runs throughout the books of the series, stemming from the murder of his own teen-aged sister when he was a child.. This book focuses that idea on missing children – children kidnapped, sold, murdered, snatched by estranged parents, aborted, abandoned, or erased from the system.

The title may refer to Atkinson's process of writing this book: She starts the story early, with the 1975 murder of a Leeds prostitute; and she brings along dog in the form of an abused little terrier Jackson rescues and sneaks into hotels in his rucksack.

The narrative moves back and forth between the earlier murder and Jackson's present-day efforts to locate the birth parents of his client – a woman adopted when she was a toddler. Running roughly parallel, with occasional intersections, is the story of Tracey Waterhouse, a newly retired Leeds police officer who finds herself on the lam with a four-year-old girl in a fairy costume.

The point of Atkinson's Brodie books is not to follow a linear string of clues to a logical solution to the mystery. Indeed, two of the main storylines in Started Early are left unresolved in the end, which is disconcerting, but hopefully signals a sequel in the works.

These are in no way conventional mysteries. They are – like all great novels – stories about people facing conflict, struggling with relationships, finding their places, and trying to understand life. That they have a few dead bodies thrown in make them "mysteries," but they are no less literature. Started Early, Took My Dog is a gobsmacker of a good book.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other Kate Atkinson book listed here, please leave  a comment with a link and I will add it.

Book Beginning: Liberated by Steve Anderson

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

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YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

I should've been more scared, but the truth was I had never felt more ready and raring to go.

Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 by Steve Anderson.  Steve has been on a role lately.  His novel, Under False Flags also came out in 2014.  And his translation of a German thriller, Mark of Cain by Marcus Hünnebeck, is available now in a Kindle edition, soon to be released in paperback.

Liberated is a sequel of sorts to Anderson's earlier WWII novel, The Losing Role, which I reviewed here. Harry Kaspar, the hero in this book, is the older brother of the main character of the earlier book, Max Kaspar.  Steve is already working on other books involving the Kaspar brothers.

List: The Oregon Book Award for Fiction

The Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships honor the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers. In addition to financial support, the program produces the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, which connects writers and readers throughout the state with readings, classroom visits, and workshops.

I hope to read the winners of the Fiction Award. Although so far, only Jump Off Creek is even waiting for me on my TBR shelf!

2015 Cari Luna, The Revolution of Every Day

2014 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and The Real: Collected Stories

2013 Ismet Prcic, Shards

2012 Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

2011 Willy Vlautin, Lean on Pete

2009/2010 Jon Raymond, Livability: Stories

2008 Ehud Havazelet, Bearing the Body

2007 Alison Clement,Twenty Questions

2006 Justin Tussing, The Best People in the World

2005 Marc Acito, How I Paid for College

2004 Tracy Daugherty, Axeman’s Jazz

2003 Cai Emmons, His Mother’s Son

2002 Gina Ochsner, The Necessary Grace to Fall

2001 Molly Best Tinsley, Throwing Knives

2000 Craig Lesley, Storm Riders

1999 Ehud Havazelet, Like Never Before

1998 Peter Ho Davies, The Ugliest House in the World

1997 Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

1996 Tracy Daugherty, What Falls Away

1995 Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker

1994 Diana Abu-Jaber, Arabian Jazz

1993 Diane Simmons, Dreams Like Thunder

1992 Ursula Le Guin, Searoad

1991 (no award)

1990 Molly Gloss, The Jump-off Creek

1989 Hob Broun, Cardinal Numbers

1988 Todd Grimson, Within Normal Limits

1987 Russell Working, Resurrectionists

NOTE

Updated July 16, 2016.

Teaser Tuesday: A Hunger for High Country

Like people, bears were unpredictable.  I couldn't tell the shy ones from the killers, so my reaction was to assume the worst about the, all.

-- A Hunger for High Country: One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh, published by the Oregon State University Press.

Marsh was one of the first women to work in the field for the US Forest Service. Her memoir is filled with evocative descriptions of the National Forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park where she worked, as well as adventures with bears, gun-toting mountain men, and sexist bureaucrats.

A Hunger for High Country offers a first-hand account of what it was like to live and work in a National Forest -- an area most of us see while driving to our vacation, but have never really thought about.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got one book last week, and I am very excited to read it:



Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 by Steve Anderson. This is the second in his "Kaspar Brothers" series. The main character, Harry Kaspar, is the older brother of Max Kaspar, the hero in The Losing Role, which I reviewed here. Steve has more stories involving the Kaspar brothers in the hopper.

PORTLANDERS: Steve is going to be reading from Liberated this Thursday, January 22, at Powell's Books on Hawthorne at 7:30. More details on the Powell's calendar.