When Will There Be Good News?

There was another great character in Olive Kitteredge that I forgot to write about. She seemed at first like someone to ridicule or even dislike because she was really into crafts and not so warm and fuzzy towards her husband. I guess she just seemed like a "type." But Strout gave her a great voice so that I ended up really enjoying her and so here I am still thinking about her, a book later. She was cranky about the name of the Grateful Dead, thought it just seemed disrespectful, and when told that the lead singer was dead, this relentlessly cheerful, afghan-knitter, announces, "Well, I hope he's grateful!"

In Kate Atkinson's latest, When Will There Be Good News? there are a ton of lines like this, funny, throw away lines or images that just stop me. One character is pretending to be a tourist while he's kind of up to no good so he ends up having to admire the local natural wonder as cover for his story. He decides 10 minutes is the minimum for authenticity and Atkinson writes: "He wished he still smoked. He wouldn't mind a drink.If you didn't smoke and you didn't drink, then standing by a waterfall for ten minutes with nothing to do was something that could really get to you..."

I really loved Atkinson's last book, One Good Turn, and I really disliked her other thriller with the same characters (Case Histories). Her other books are somewhere on the spectrum though they are ALL weird. This one was good. I like the characters, I like her writing, and everyone more or less ends up where they're supposed to be (some dead, some avenged, some rewarded, etc.). There are some dissatisfying moments towards the end and the train accident is a bit over the top, but you just have to let that go. I did get fairly annoyed reading about Chief Inspector Louise's qualms about her new marriage. Who cares? I hate reading about women who get themselves into a situation (in this case a good one) and just churn around in their own mess until they muck everything up.

Friend Denise and I don't agree much on mysteries--though she has the advantage over me of having read them for years. I am too picky, I suppose, but I feel that Atkinson's books are an easy way into this genre if you're a novice or nervous about trying a "mystery' (for whatever reason). Maybe I just like skirting the edges of the genre.

I did notice that just about every character had at least one family member (sometimes several)that had died in weird ways (or died, anyway). There were several car crashes, murders (obviously), and long hair getting caught in pool drains (ooookaaay...). I know the story centers around police and sordid lives, but really, how many people die so dramatically in one place? Maybe this is always happening in mysteries and thrillers. Doesn't make me want to move to Edinburgh, anyway.

I'm working on Leif Enger's So Brave, Young, and Handsome. I'll see how far I get with a man's voice.