'Investigating other people’s tragedies and cock-ups and misfortunes was all he knew. He was used to being a voyeur, the outsider looking in, and nothing, but nothing, that anyone did surprised him any more. Yet despite everything he’d seen and done, inside Jackson there remained a belief – a small, battered and bruised belief – that his job was to help people be good rather than punish them for being bad.'


Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet – Lost on the left, Found on the right – and the two never seem to balance. His days are full of people clamouring for answers and explanations. A jealous husband suspects his wife. Two spinster sisters make a shocking find. A solicitor investigates an old murder. A nurse has lost her niece; a widow, her cats.

Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. He is forty-five but feels much, much older. He is at that dangerous age when men suddenly notice that they’re going to die eventually, inevitably, and there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life is brought sharply into focus.

Ingeniously plotted, full of suspense and heartbreak, CASE HISTORIES is a feat of bravura storytelling that conveys the mysteries of life, its inanities and its hilarities. It is a life-affirming work of profound insight and intelligence.

Not just the best novel I have read this year...but the best mystery of the decade. There are actually four mysteries, nesting like Russian dolls, and when they begin to fit together, I defy any reader not to feel a combination of delight and amazement. Case Histories is the literary equivalent of a triple axel. I read it once for pleasure and then again just to see how it was done. This is the mind of book you shove in people’s faces, saying ‘You gotta read this!’
Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

One of the most brilliantly playful, witty and original writers we have.
Scotsman

Her best book yet...a tragi-comedy for our times.’
Katie Owen, Sunday Telegraph

‘Civilised, funny, life-affirming and hugely enjoyable. I can’t recall reading crime fiction quite like this before- honest, ironic, and cheerfully unselfconscious. I urge you to share my surprise and delight.’
Philip Oakes, Literary Review

‘At heart a comic novelist, who explores the relationship between comedy and crime... In Case Histories, these skills have found their literary home.’
Heather O’Donoghue, Times Literary Supplement

So well-written...Everyone who picks it up will feel compelled to follow it through to the last page.
Guardian

‘A greedy feast of a story by a masterful author ... Will stay with you for a long time after you have finished reading it. ‘
Daily Express

‘Sharp humour, together with a number of unexpected twists, make this a typically pacey and intelligent read.’
Daily Mail

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