STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, KATE ATKINSON, DOUBLEDAY, $32.95.
Tracy Waterhouse retired from the West Yorkshire police force with a shell so thick there was scarcely anything left inside.
Now over 50 and doing the rounds as security chief of her shopping centre, she spots prostitute and druggie Kelly Cross cruelly dragging a little girl. In a moment of madness, she “buys” the child, thus setting her life off course. So begins Atkinson’s fourth novel featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie and though we know the ex-cops will coincide, it’s a slow and enjoyable burn as plots intertwine and new crimes pile on old. Here, as in her other Brodie books, Atkinson delivers the staples of crime – corrupt cops, high body count, missing children – with a tilt at the conventions and a lightness of touch.
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