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Sunday, August 25, 2019

Big Sky by Kate Atchinson

Wow!  After years have passed since the last Jackson Brodie book, here we are, almost out of the blue, another one.
While there haven't been any books in between, the lives of all those we know in Jackson's life have moved on.  His daughter Marlee is on the brink of marriage.  Nathan, his son with Julia, is also getting older and more independent.  Jackson is living alone, and is mostly reflecting on the bad choices that he has made in the course of his life when it came to love, and yet he continues on in that vein as the novel ends.
The book begins a couple of miles north of Whitby. Brodie is living in modest rural digs, sharing custody of Nathan with Julia, getting on with his small life. We are introduced to a trio of golfing mates. Vince is a telecommunication area manager in late middle age going through a  particularly nasty divorce; Tommy is a prosperous bouncer turned hauler who has a trophy wife with a dark past; Andy runs a failing B&B with his formidable wife Rhoda. The narrative circles in its own time around the relationships and disappointments of its characters, but connections start to proliferate and secrets start to emerge.  It all comes together in the end, and then blows apart.  Very good read.

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