When Will There Be Good News?

'A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.' So says Jackson Brodie, as if in anticipation of some of the reviews of Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News?

There are a lot of coincidences, but nothing that wouldn't seem out of place in any newspaper crime story. As the old cliché goes truth is always stranger than fiction ...

And anyway the writing is so fine that you don't really care if Jackson's martian cousins had landed in Ms MacDonald's garden in Musselburgh instead of the runaway GNER intercity express of the novel.

For me the first Jackson novel was just a little bit twee and the happy ending wrapped things up a bit too neatly. Atkinson seemed a little unsure of her departure from the cosy world of literary fiction and it took a while for her to find her feet with the crime elements of the story. The second one was more believable and the writing was tighter.

This time everything comes together beautifully – the writing is taught and noir-ish, the multiple narrator perspective works brilliantly, giving different viewpoints and pushing the narrative onwards, and the different layers of the story reveal themselves spectacularly.

The ending seems to suggest that there may be a few more adventures for Jackson still to come, but if not I am sure that Reggie could step in and take over the franchise.