Following the pandemic-induced boom in “cozy crime” led by Richard Osman, several authors who might be described as “cozy-adjacent” have begun to tackle the subject. In “Death at the Sign of the Rook,” her sixth Jackson Brodie novel, Kate Atkinson is the latest to tell us that her private detective hero refuses to read “old-fashioned, so-called ‘cozy’ crime novels… He’d seen too much of the real stuff, and it wasn’t cozy in the slightest.”
Part of the strength of the Brodie books has always been the tension between their offbeat storylines and their frequent sudden intrusions into the realities of violence and grief. Again and again, Atkinson reminds us that women are fighting a constant war against a seemingly ever-growing army of misogynistic predators—though the invention of Brodie, committed to protecting them, makes the series more comforting than terrifying.
Brodie was last seen in Big Sky five years ago. Now in his 60s, he has become a grandfather: the baby is named Niamh, after his sister, whose murder catapulted him into his life as a white knight decades ago. But the damaging effects that Brodie’s devotion to his work has had on his relationships with his wives and children are less emphasized here than usual. In fact, the series is the closest thing to full-blown fun.
The feather-light main plot sees Brodie on the trail of an art thief whose loot includes a turner stolen from the stately Yorkshire estate of Burton Makepeace. But, as is usual in the series, the plot takes a back seat to the delicious character studies. There are the terrible, impoverished Miltons of Burton Makepeace (cartoonish aristocrats, but Atkinson’s 2D characters are more memorable than many of his colleagues’ 3D characters); their treacherous local vicar, who has lost his voice out of shame at his hypocrisy and delivers his sermons in sign language; and another neighbour, an Afghanistan veteran nursing his physical and emotional wounds in rural solitude. Eventually the whole cast reunites at Burton Makepeace for a violent and delightfully mad end, during one of the murder mystery nights the Miltons are forced to host.
At times, one may find Atkinson’s jabs at not only cozy crime novels but also the formulas of the genre in general annoying. Seekshe seems to say, how I break the rules and fill my books with unlikely coincidences and illogical behavior and still produce something deep and involving. On the other hand, her sense of superiority would be justified. In this case, she has at least given us a novel with the comfort of Horlicks, but still offering good writing, wit, originality and eccentricity – even if it evokes a warm feeling.
Death at the Sign of the Rook is published by Doubleday for £22. To order your copy for £18.99, call 0808 196 6794 or visit Telegraph Books
