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Random House Australia, 2008
Reviewed by Kerrie Smith
Thirty years ago Andrew Decker killed Joanna Mason's mother, sister, baby
brother and dog. Six year old Joanna escaped by running into the fields.
And now Andrew Decker is to be released from gaol.
Reggie Chase is an orphan too. Her mother died recently while on holidays,
an accidental drowning, not a murder. Reggie's life owes its stability to
her own resilience, her part-time job as a nanny for Dr. Hunter's baby
son, and to her friendship with her ex-teacher Ms. McDonald. The night of
the big train derailment on the line behind Ms. McDonald's house is the
night Dr. Hunter and the baby disappear. It's also the night Reggie Chase
brings Jackson Brodie back from the dead.
Reggie is convinced that, whatever Dr. Hunter's husband says, she and the
baby have been kidnapped. Life has made Reggie old beyond her years. She
is remarkably resourceful and persistent.
WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? isn't just a good read. It's a mystery, and
an exploration of relationships. #3 in the series, it adds to the
unfolding story of Jackson Brodie, and newly married Detective Chief
Inspector Louise Munro. In addition to serious story threads it is laced
with humour in unexpected places, and with poignant sadness too.
Some of the scenarios are perhaps a little too coincidental, maybe testing
the reader's sense of credibility. But who cares? This is fiction and an
author whose writing holds our interest can do whatever she likes, can't
she?
Kate Atkinson's love of the English language surfaces in the way she
merges nursery rhymes into the text: "Reggie Chase, as small as a mouse,
as quiet as a house with no one home." The description of the sound of the
derailing of the train is vivid: ".. as if a giant hand was clawing a
giant blackboard with giant fingernails and finally a tremendous bang like
an explosive clap of thunder. The apocalypse had come to town." Kate
Atkinson wants us to savour the words, roll them around like wine on the
palate.
This is a book worth dwelling on. I hesitate to use the term literary
thriller even though the blurb on the back cover does. Kate Atkinson,
winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year with her very first novel, is
something of a "genre-jumper". But take your time with this book. There's
more than one story to enjoy here. I look forward to Jackson Brodie #4,
although, according to the author, it may be a long time in coming.
Kate Atkinson's site contains the first chapter of WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD
NEWS? as well as a video interview, where she talks about where her ideas
come from and how her characters are created. There is also a video
extract of Kate Atkinson reading from the book.
Sep 2008 review originally published on Murder and Mayhem
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