Jackson Brodie Meets the Coincidence Fairy

Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson

Central Leeds

Perhaps the most irritating failing of crime writers is over-dependence on coincidence. It seems to me to be a form of laziness, lack of imagination, or both. One writer who’s made a career out of over-dependence on the muse I call the Coincidence Fairy is Robert K. Tanenbaurm in his Karp family series (at least once he’d lost ghost writer Michael Gruber); another popular author who’s sometimes suspect is Sue Grafton with her Kinsey Millhone series. And now I may have a third coincidence criminal: Kate Atkinson, at least from the plot of Started Early, Took My Dog.

Jackson Brodie, retired London cop turned reluctant PI, is backtracking an adoption thirty-five years ago in Leeds when he accidentally acquires a dog. At more or less the same time, retired Leeds cop Tracy Waterhouse (now head of security for a shopping mall) accidentally acquires a daughter. Well, actually, she buys four-year-old Courtney from a local hooker for £3000…



Brodie’s on the trail of what may be an off-the-books adoption (sort of like his dog, or perhaps little Courtney) that – gasp! – harkens back to the Carol Braithwaite murder, just coincidentally (there’s that word!) Tracy’s first murder scene as a rookie. Something is/was rotten in Leeds, however, as Jackson’s contact at the Leeds equivalent of Child Protective Services, Linda Pallister, is studiously avoiding him. Strange: the same Linda Pallister was present at the scene of the long-ago Braithwaite murder to take possession of the dead woman’s four-year-old son.

As Waterhouse runs for the hills with her ill-gotten daughter, Brodie toddles along in her wake. And speaking of toddling along, here comes Tilly Squires, half-senile actress who plays the mother of everyone’s favorite cop, Collier. Tilly may be a doddering old lady, but she still knows what’s important.

Kate Atkinson’s fourth Jackson Brodie novel, Started Early, Took My Dog, is a study in working the poor Coincidence Fairy’s magic wand to a frazzle. People cross each other’s paths with wholly unlikely frequency and at almost every intersection Atkinson takes the least probable turn. For instance, Jackson Brodie’s appointment with Linda Pallister is prevented because she’d been spooked by a visit from a private detective named… wait for it… Brian Jackson (Jackson B., B. Jackson – get it). Or perhaps you’ll shiver at the coincidence that finds Tracy and Courtney stumbling through the woods after wrecking the car only to be picked up by a Good Samaritan driver who just happens to be… wait for it… Jackson Brodie!

Yet for all the ridiculously unlikely coincidences and the irritatingly dotty Tilly (sadly, she reminds me of my mother), Atkinson’s novel works. Yes, I was as surprised as you! Brodie, who holds conversations in his head with his ex-wife (ex?) and has a complicated back-story, is an interesting and sympathetic character. Tracy isn’t your standard TV female cop who is a former runway model – she’s fifty-something and rather stout (though there is a runway model in the story somewhere). Props to Atkinson for at least writing about real people – even if I had to dust off my British-American English dictionary for some passages!

When push comes to shove, Started Early, Took My Dog doesn’t reach “must-read” status by any stretch of the imagination, but it’ll keep even the most serious crime-fiction reader guessing and it’s a welcome respite from the usual run of serial-killer tales. Go ahead and read it - I think you'll enjoy it.