Case Histories

Kate Atkinson entered the highest league of contemporary literature on her very first attempt: her debut novel “The Diary of My Secrets” won the prestigious Whitbread Prize, beating Salman Rushdie’s “The Moor’s Last Sigh.” And the cycle of novels about private detective Jackson Brodie—already loved by Russian readers (“Past Crimes,” “A Turn for the Better,” “Waiting for Good News?,” “Daybreak with a Dog, Two by Two”)—Stephen King dubbed “the main detective project of the decade.” Based on the first books of the cycle, the BBC produced the TV series “Past Crimes,” starring Jackson Iceaxe in the lead role.

In the novel “Past Crimes,” private detective Jackson Brodie is drawn into cases the police have long filed away: the mysterious disappearance of a little girl at night from her parents’ garden; the unmotivated murder of the daughter of a well-known lawyer who assisted him in his office; and a bloody episode of domestic violence in a young family living on a farm. At first glance, they seem to have nothing in common, and the traces have gone cold long ago. Yet the threads intertwine, reaching into the present—and in the most unexpected way they bring the characters together, each with their own skeletons in the cupboard…