This is the second book I have read by Atkinson, and I liked both, good stories, usually set around a murder or two. Like a lot of modern works, we follow the lives of a number of people, and at first, we are not sure who is who, how they relate. The major characters seem to be Tracy Waterhouse, a retired police office, single, unattractive, but effective and Jackson Brodie, a womanizer, private investigator, hired to find a orphaned woman's mom, who stumbles upon a hornet's nest of deceit, murder, abduction, and the cover up. Tracy, too, ends up getting involved, first as the innocent cop as she begins her career with a unsolved murder, and later, when she saves a child's life, after she was being beaten by the mother. It ends up much more complicated than this, as Jackson ends up trying to find Tracy who may hold the key to they mystery, but she wants nothing more than to just disappear with this urchin. The ugly truth is eventually uncovered, both Jackson and Tracy somehow survive, and the criminals finally get their just desserts. At first, the book was confusing, as nothing seemed to fit...Jackson taking a dog from an abusive owner, Tracy taking a child from an abusive parents, and an aging, fairly demented actress witnessing both of these scenes at a mall. I am still not sure why she's in the book, other than acting as a deus ex machina towards the end, an irony no doubt, perhaps too much of a coincidence.
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