Started Early, Took My Dog (2010)

"When she was murdered his sister was just three years older than his daughter was now. Marlee was fourteen. A dangerous age, although, let's face it, Jackson thought, every age was a dangerous age for a woman."

With Started Early, Took My Dog Kate Atkinson continues the adventures of private investigator Jackson Brodie, first introduced in Case Histories. Here Jackson has been charged with finding the origins of a woman who was adopted as a child, an adoption which it appears was performed illegally. Per usual in the Brodie stories, this is just one of several interlacing threads which will dovetail as the story nears its conclusion. Also per usual, Jackson isn't the "star," exactly; he's the figure who connects this novel to the previous novels but within the context of the novel itself, he's not necessarily any more important than any of the other point-of-view characters.

The novel is divided into three plot threads: one following Jackson, another following Tracy Waterhouse, a former Detective Superintendent now working mall security, and the third following Tilly Squires, an actress losing the battle against dementia. As the story gets started, all three come into possession of things that don't belong to them: Tilly is always wandering off with things that don't belong to her and is later baffled as to why she has them; Jackson takes a dog from an abusive owner; Tracy buys a child from a parent she deems unfit. The three plots weave in and out of each other (and touch on a long dormant murder mystery) until finally coming together in the story's climax. Although the mystery element is well-conceived and executed, Atkinson uses it less as an end of itself and more as a means of exploring the relationship between society and women, including the limitations imposed on women by society and the dangers posed to women by society (the root story of the mystery is set against the backdrop of the days of the Yorkshire Ripper).

Atkinson's novels are never anything less than delightful, though her Brodie novels are not as resonant as her earlier, magic realist works. Her prose style is deeply engaging and she draws us into the lives of her characters in a way that makes it look astonishingly easy. Started Early, Took My Dog is a very enjoyable book, albeit flawed. The Tilly plot, for example, feels uncomfortably shoehorned in and there are a few loose (although ultimately minor) threads left dangling at the end. Nevertheless, it's a great read, the kind of book you'll find you hard to put down.