I was really looking forward to this book. I saw the adverts for the television drama and thought it looked good (although I didn't actually watch it) and so when I saw the book I couldn't resist it. But I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.
I don't think this was bad book. The cases were fairly interesting and I thought it was well written – although some of the language was fairly crude and I could have perhaps done without that (and I'm no prude!). I just don't think it was needed and it didn't really add anything. I've heard a lot about the comedy of the book but I didn't really see that at all.
There were certain little things that niggled me about the way the book was written. The chapters were narrated by different characters from the book (Jackson, Amelia, Theo and Caroline along with the occasional case history) but some of the action in say Amelia's chapter would then be re-examined in Jackson's chapter or visa versa. This led to me being especially confused when a dog died during one of the chapters and then was alive and well at the beginning of a different characters narration. Sometimes it's good to see things from a different angle but when it isn't expressly stated which point in time your in at the start of us narrator change it gets a bit confusing (and boring when your covering the same point in time such as Jackson finding Theo and Marlee).
I quite liked Jackson Brodie the detective. I think the relationship between Jackson and his young daughter Marlee was a highlight of the book and I hope that this is continued in the other books in the series. I also liked how, not only did Jackson work on the main cases (Laura Wyre and Olivia Land) but we also got to learn a little bit about his other work. With Nicola – although after putting the book down I did forget who Nicola was and had to flick back just to refresh my memory. I also didn't quite get Jackson sleeping with certain characters but that may have just been me.
Of the cases I think it was the Olivia case that really drew my attention and I liked the fact that Binky eventually became a part of that case as well as having her own side plot. I think the crimes against Jackson didn't quite work properly and seemingly big things happened and yet there wasn't much reaction to it. The conclusion to Olivia's story was a good one and I liked that it was fairly well tied up. Although I have to say the change in Amelia come the end was rather unexpected and it was a bit of a “What The … moment”.
The Laura case was interesting but did it have to be stated so many times that Theo was fat? It was getting to the point of driving me insane. I got that he was overweight the first time the author mentioned it and I hadn't forgotten it by the 9999th (maybe a bit of exaggeration there) time she mentioned it.
I think of the books cases I was most disappointed with that of Michelle Fletcher. I think I had it pretty much figured out the main aspects of the story (such as the fate of Tanya) and with the arrival of Shirley everything else sort of dropped in to place and suddenly that mystery just felt too obvious. I'm always a little disappointed when I manage to work out a mystery before it's conclusion. I also didn't really feel that this case fitted all that well with the other two. Perhaps because the majority of the action took place away from the other characters.
I'm not sure whether I'll read the remaining books in the Jackson Brodie series. Maybe they improve?
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