Started Early, Took My Dog

Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson, Black Swan, RRP£7.99, 496 pages

By the time rookie police constable Tracy Waterhouse arrives at the Leeds flat where a prostitute has been murdered, the child found there has vanished. That moment in 1975 nags at Waterhouse throughout her illustrious 30-year career in the force, until a shocking exchange with a drug dealer brings into focus a high-level police cover-up.

Meanwhile Kate Atkinson’s tenacious ex-forces detective Jackson Brodie arrives in Leeds, commissioned by an Australian woman to find her parents. Brodie’s search leads to the dead prostitute, and on to Waterhouse.

Flicking episodically between the present day and 1975, Started Early, Took My Dog, Brodie’s fourth outing, is a labyrinthine affair that baffles the reader with blind alleys and loose ends rather than plot twists.

It might have been better to reveal more about fewer people, but Atkinson’s prose is engagingly sharp and this thriller cracks along with plenty of pace.