pagesofjulia

Unusually for me, I watched the television series first, and it is a striking series, and obviously colored my imaginings while reading this novel. It might have been desirable (for the usual reasons) to do it in the other order, but gosh, I think this is a rare case of each enriching the other. (Also, it has been long enough that I was still able to find surprises while reading. It pays to be forgetful if you read and reread mysteries.)

This is a brilliant novel. I love everything about it. It feels a touch genre-bendy, with the title and the three different cases intertwined, although it is of course not unheard of to see a PI or detective involved with multiple cases at once. Case Histories introduces three distinct mysteries before we meet Jackson Brodie, a retired military policeman and regular copper now working on his own. He has a grumpy receptionist, a recently remarried ex-wife, and an eight-year-old daughter he’s crazy about. He runs, off and on smokes cigarettes, and listens to moody American female country music stars (Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Allison Moorer). He’s from the north of England but now lives, and the novel is set, in Cambridge, a location with lots to contribute to the story. (I looked it up and confirmed my confusion about location: the TV series is set in Edinburgh. Also an impactful setting, but boy, they threw me off with that one. Cambridge does so much work here though! Was it too challenging to film there?) Jackson has enough to worry about with his divorce and entirely real dental problems–he’s become a regular with a heavy-breathing, magnetic dentist named Sharon, although it’s unclear if she is in on the sexual tension between them–but some earlier traumas are also at work upon our protagonist, that the reader will only find out about late in the book.

I called Jackson the protagonist and I do feel that way (although maybe, again, influenced by the TV show), but there are a few other issues percolating too. Mr. Wyre mourns his younger (and undeniably favorite daughter), murdered in his office while he was briefly away, several years ago. The crime remains unsolved. A woman with a shadowy past makes yet another fresh start. The Land sisters, Julia and Amelia, go through their father’s house after his death and find a clue in the long-ago disappearance of the youngest sister, Olivia. (They consider themselves the two remaining Land sisters of four, even though Sylvia is alive and well, in a convent.) Steve Spencer believes his wife is cheating on him. A wealthy, obnoxious elderly widow named Binky Rain is convinced someone is stealing her cats. A young homeless woman with yellow hair crosses paths repeatedly with multiple characters, asking “Can you help me?” All of these large and small worries, crimes, puzzles will become Jackson’s problem in one way or another. He is long-suffering (and the toothaches don’t help), a bit hapless, but good. His relationship with his daughter Marlee is very sweet.

I think one of the things I love about this book is the layers of personality that the main characters and even some of the less-central ones exhibit. Jackson’s dental troubles, the country music he prefers, his frustrations with his ex, his running (which I think played a larger role on television than it does here), fill him out. The Land sisters are both pathos-ridden and hysterically funny. Marlee is a gem. Jackson’s old buddy Howell remains mostly theoretical, off-screen, but appears for a brief, funny scene in the hospital, where Jackson concedes, “he supposed his daughter would be pretty safe on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Russian gangsters.” Case Histories is like that: off-kilter, random, funny, emotive in the still-waters sort of way, concerned with profound ills but also basically good folks. Steeped in the kinds of details that make these things work. I can’t wait to read more Jackson Brodie.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: family, mystery, sense of place |