Started Early, Took My Dog (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Great title. Not so great book. I just couldn't get into it mainly because the jumping around is so very annoying. I don't have time to read a book straight through, and doing that might have helped, but I don't know that it serves any purpose to have a scene from 1975 with no explanation, and then another scene with no explanation, and then another. If the purpose was to sort the die hard Kate Atkinson fans from the ordinary reader, it succeeded. I quit after 50 pages. Started Early, Took My Dog - Atkinson audio performance by Graeme Malcolm 4 starsThis isn’t your typical detective story. There are overlapping plot and timelines. Jackson Brody, semi-retired private investigator isn’t working terribly hard for his single client, an adopted child searching for her biological parents. The mystery isn’t solved by brilliant deduction. Instead, secrets seem to tumble down like the small pebble starting the eventual avalanche. The mystery is really only a vehicle for an examination of family, parenting, grief, loneliness, and aging; the human condition. I like Atkinson’s use of multiple perspectives. I like that the lines between the good and bad guys are blurry. I’m not at all disturbed that there isn’t a neatly tied up happy ending for everyone. Enough good things happen that the bad things aren’t disturbingly bleak. I think it’s a bit unlikely for Jackson Brody to be an Emily Dickinson fan, but I enjoyed the poetry. And I really liked the dog.
What do You think about Started Early, Took My Dog (2010)?
Nooooooooooooooo . . . .I didn't want it to end that way! Heck, I just didn't want it to end!
—Sasa
I love this author. She has a subtle sense of humor -- Jackson is a delight.
—Modolabisi
