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<\/a>Instead, I’ll tell you about Death at the Sign of the Rook.<\/em> It was the last novel I truly devoured; a new Jackson Brodie novel. I was a tiny bit book-shy, because the last one I read was quite shattering (from memory, child sexual abuse by highly connected Tories, or was it media types?).\nThere was no need to worry, and I should have known from the title. This is Atkinson having loads of fun with the genre.<\/p>\n
Brodie is slowing down, and so is business. He’s hired by an elderly brother and sister to find a Renaissance portrait that’s gone missing from their mother’s house. Has the care worker stolen it? It just so happens that a Turner has disappeared from a nearby stately home, in similar circumstances. The coincidence is too much for Brodie, so he reaches out to Reggie Chase (who featured in When Will There Be Good News?<\/em>) who’s on the case. The novel then takes a turn into classic golden era British crime with a snowstorm, an axe murderer, a mute vicar, a one-legged Major and a cast of nasty aristocrats and tourists at a farcical Murder Mystery weekend. Actually, the whole thing descends into farce. I laughed out loud. Which is alarming, when you consider that people were getting violently killed and maimed.<\/p>\n It was clever and funny and, in the desert of reading matter I have stumbled into, a delightful drink of sherry in the library. On a silver tray. With little cheese biscuits. \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m going through a very frustrating phase in my reading life. It’s very unsettling; I can’t seem to find the ‘Goldilocks’ book, the one that’s just right. My library bag is full of returns that I’ve glanced into and skimmed … Continue reading
\nI’ve read better mysteries, but with much less enjoyment.<\/p>\n