I’d heard of Kate Atkinson and even started watching the mini-series “Case Histories” on Amazon Prime before I started this book. For me, the ideas I had going in did not match what I read, which probably led to my slight disappointment.

Atkinson has that meandering style of writing, where you might want to go back and check a tiny detail, but you can’t find it because her paragraphs don’t have a typical beginning or end. The writing is atmospheric, much more focused on character than plot.

I wouldn’t mind this as much, but the book really seemed to be billed as a detective story. There were also some huge coincidences that I found unbelieveable (for example, when Lily-Rose asked Amelia and Julia to help Theo when he collasped), some plot holes (Stan Jessop’s wife was never interviewed about the man in the yellow sweater.. really?), and the timeline jumped in places.

3 stars for nice writing.