Case Histories by Kate Atkinson *** (of 4)

The first in a mystery series for detective Jackson Brodie. Kate Atkinson's account of a series of women done criminally wrong is delivered with such tartness you can't help but snigger all the way through. Take for example, Sylvia, an ugly duckling of an adolescent, whose mother rationalizes Sylvia's personal conversations with God this way. "And at least conversations with God were free, whereas the upkeep of a pony would have cost a fortune."

Or this example. An unsympathetic physician visited by an overweight Theo, a client of Jackson Brodie's, describes his GP as, "a young woman with a very short haircut and a gym bag thrown carelessly in the corner of the doctor's office." The GP calls Theo obese condemning him, "to skim milk and chaff." Theo thinks of himself as a rotund Santa Claus.  Even descriptions of children who disappear and unfortunate souls whose throats are unceremoniously slit come off rather jauntily. The action hustles along, but as a first novel, poor Jackson seems to be following, rather than uncovering. Near the end, unsolved cases are remedied and unrequited lovers unite a little too neatly, but I dismiss those as shortcomings of a first time at a detective story.