Jackson Brodie
Jackson Brodie is back and a collective cheer rings out across the country. It’s been way too long!
Big Sky is the fifth book in the Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson.
Jackson is living in Yorkshire. I can’t remember if that’s where he lived before; it’s been too long and my memory is filled with too many other stories since I read the previous Jackson Brodie book, Started Early Took My Dog, which was published in 2010.
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Jackson is still a private detective which leads him to get involved with a case of people trafficking.
There are lots of characters and lots of scenarios, often told from different character’s points of view. The story is rather disjointed as we skip back or forward slightly with scenes and it’s sometimes hard to follow where particular characters actually are. I know this is a device that Kate Atkinson uses to good effect in many of her books, but in this instance, I kept feeling I’d lost track of where characters were.
Full of Character
The characters are well drawn and easy to identify with, but read this book quickly because, if you put it down for a few days, you’ll return and be presented with a new set of captivating characters and you may find you lose the thread of who’s who and what’s happened.
I really enjoyed this book and then, when I got about 80% through, I found we suddenly and rather hurriedly wrapped everything up and finished it all. We then jumped to another scenario about Jackson’s daughter, Marlee, which I didn’t really find interesting or relevant to the story I’d just been reading.
We also had an extremely late entrance of a character from an earlier book. I tried to dredge something up from my memory about this person but I couldn’t recall exactly what she meant to Jackson Brodie. If this was the first Jackson Brodie book I had read this would have meant absolutely nothing to me.
However, if you have read the Jackson Brodie series more recently than me, you will not experience the same problems.
Start as Early as You Can – With or Without Your Dog
If you don’t know Jackson yet please start with the first book in the series Case Histories. You won’t be sorry!
Yes, it prompted me to get Started Early Took My Dog from my bookshelf to reread it. Perhaps I can read them all in reverse order now!
To Sum Up the Evidence
All in all, I enjoyed the read, but I was left ever so slightly disappointed.
A bit like life really.
But don’t take my word for it – try Big Sky by Kate Atkinson for yourself!
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