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Started Early, Took My Dog
Kate Atkinson
#UE8362 Paperback, 371 pages; 2011 $14.99
Members' Price: $12.74

  Master of melding literary and detective fiction, Kate Atkinson has again created a witty and stylish novel that's as thought provoking as it is suspenseful. Jackson Brodie, Atkinson's charming, curmudgeonly gumshoe, is officially on the hunt for the English roots of an adopted client living abroad (and unofficially searching for his own con-artist wife). His quest leads him to cross paths with retired detective Tracy Waterhouse, whose recent foray into kidnapping (with only the noblest intentions) has her running from her former colleagues in the law and suspicious of everyone. But it's a homicide case from Tracy's past that interests Jackson. Long-suppressed facts about the gruesome 1970s murder gradually emerge, connecting the lives of a disparate cast of characters, and leaving all forever altered. Started Early, Took My Dog (the title is from an Emily Dickinson poem) is intelligent crime fiction at its best--with a lovable canine character, to boot. (See also Kate Atkinson's Case Histories on page 35 of the catalog.) (AG)