I Want To Read: When Will There Be Good News?

This is Kate Atkinson. She is awesome.

Well, I don't know her per se, so perhaps I should qualify that her writing is awesome. Her most recent book, When Will There Be Good News?, was released last year. The only reason that it's not already in my hot little hands is because I am trying to preserve some modicum of fiscal responsibility. (It's not in American paperback until January 2010).

When Will There Be Good News? is Atkinson's latest mystery featuring the Scottish detective Jackson Brodie. I picked up the first, Case Histories, based on strong reviews and the intriguing title. (Atkinson has a way with titles: I like Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Emotionally Weird).

It was a good pick. Great, really. The thing with Atkinson is that she infuses well-crafted mysteries with language that is associated with literature, as opposed to (heaven forbid) genre fiction. It's not uncommon to find a mystery writer who can navigate a tricky plot but who doesn't rise above mediocrity on a sentence by sentence basis. And of course there are many, often more well-respected writers who can write beautiful stories in which very little seems to actually happen. Atkinson fuses the best of the two. Her stories are ambitious, complicated, sometimes messy, but absolutely enjoyable.

It's the reason I haven't just checked the book out from the library. I'm convinced that once I've read it, I'll want to hold on to it. It's nice to have that level of trust in an author. It doesn't always work out of course (see: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell). Also, of course, I don't feel that I can go to the library when I have a pile of unread books sitting in my apartment. Oh, the troubles of a reader.