Atkinson begins with three "case histories," each separated by time and space. This itself is unusual for a mystery novel. A married couple who don't deserve to have any children nevertheless have four daughters, the youngest of which disappears one summer night. A young woman is slashed to death on her first day working at her father's law office. A depressed young mother kills her husband with an ax.
Years pass before Brodie, a former police officer now working as a private investigator, is hired by three different people to look into all three cases. Two of the surviving sisters want to know what happened to their missing sibling. A still-grieving father wants to know who killed his daughter. The sister of the woman who killed her husband wants to find that woman's daughter, adopted by someone else after the murder.
As if this isn't enough of a caseload to deal with at one time, someone is trying to kill Jackson Brodie by such means as sabotaging his car and blowing up his house. That Brodie continues his investigations in the company of his young daughter is the part of the novel that is hardest to swallow. Wouldn't a loving father return the girl to her mother while his life is in danger, even if the mother does plan to take their daughter to Australia with her lover?
The narrative flits from one case to another, often within a single paragraph. Brodie often seems like a minor character rather than the hero. Perhaps the most significant rule Atkinson breaks is that the secrets are ultimately revealed not by Brodie but by the omniscient narrator who tells us what really happened in the startling closing chapters. Brodie is close, it turns out, but no cigar.
One rule the author doesn't break is to keep the reader guessing until the very end.
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