Rapscallion Magazine Book Review: a comic meander through the back roads of England in Kate Atkinson’s Death at the Sign of the Rook as she sends up the English in this ‘who took it’

Book Review: Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson

A rather confusing meander across middle England in a novel which at times I think got lost somewhere between Burton Makepiece and Ottershall House. Although if Lady Milton was the navigator, we’d be kept amused: “We had to read Emma at School, it was torture.” She preferred her dogs to her children and had only married Johnny as he was a VSIT – very safe in taxis. Although she’d never been in one as she had a chauffeur.

But I digress, the Kate Atkinson’s Death at the Sign of the Rook is essentially a whodunnit or rather a who took it since it’s about a missing painting – but it does have a long cast of characters from Lady Milton’s family to mysterious housekeepers, and the protagonist and ex detective Jackson Brodie. His sparring with detective Reggie (who he pretends is his step-daughter in an awkward moment at a funeral wake) are some of the highlights of what is also a comic satire of the English and our foibles and terrible sense of humour.

I give you the unlimited leg jokes made at the expense of ex-soldier and uniped Ben by his friends and family (he had his leg blown off in Afghanistan). ‘Best foot forward’, ‘one foot in the grave’, and so on although his army mates had much fun suggesting he ‘gets his leg over’ on a Saturday night – no need to pay for a prostitute they said, ‘and it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg.’

The blurb says Agatha Christie would be proud, but I feel it’s more likely Evelyn Waugh would be proud as it sends up not only the detective novel but the English. A great read, beautifully observed, hilarious set pieces, but until the final few pages it felt as if it had taken too many diversions through the back roads of England.

Harry Mottram

The novel was the lates book chosen for the Axbridge Four Seasons Book Club. To join contact me – and visit our FaceBook site for more info.

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