A mother wraps up her baby and walks away: STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been years since I read a Kate Atkinson book, but picking back up with the Jackson Brodie series was easy. I had forgotten how Atkinson writes--beautifully and full of description, but in a meandering manner, with no real sense of urgency. As a result, you desperately want to know what happened, but also get caught up in her well-drawn characters.

Here we have Tracy Waterhouse, a retired police detective, used to a life of routine, until she steals a small child off a notorious offender from her police days. We also hear from Tilly, a famous actress who is losing her memory, and, of course, Jackson, who is traveling while investigating the parentage of a woman named Hope who is looking for her adoptive parents.

The story flips between present-day and a strange intersection of Tracy, Jackson, and Tilly, and the 1970s, when a young Tracy, newly on the force, investigates the death of a prostitute, Carol, left for dead in her apartment for weeks, along with her young child.

All the characters sort of ramble--Tracy, as she recalls her past and as she grapples with caring for a child; Jackson, as he remembers the loss of his sister and thinks about his life while he wanders about and investigates; and dear Tilly, whose passages heartrendingly capture her memory loss. At the same time, their merging stories form a clear picture about what happened to Carol in the past and then, in the present day, answer Hope's questions about her true parentage.

This is a lovely story to read, with a good mystery tucked inside well-developed characters. It requires a bit of patience to read, but it's worth it.

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