Book Report: Death at the Sign of the Rook

20. Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook (2024) (10/16/25)

This book was a mess. It's as if Atkinson had an idea of a story—the theft of a possible Raphael, from a down-at-the-heel manor estate with an assortment of residents and tenants. A story she went with for a while—including the possible earlier theft of another grand master, at another estate. Until there was nowhere else to go. And then, oh! look! a murderer has just escaped from prison. Maybe he can shake things up! And oh, let's throw in a debilitating snowstorm as well!

When all that wasn't enough, Atkinson decided to wrap the entire confection in a traveling players scenario. There! An unsatisfyingly complicated mystery with too many characters.

That said, the writing is good, often drolly amusing. And I do like the main protagonist, PI Jackson Brodie, whom I met in the first of the series (this was the sixth). But I had reservations then, too—at the cleverness of the plot, though that shouldn't be a slight. Still, I guess I'm happier with simpler tales. Will I read another in the series? Possibly. But I will have to approach it as a confection, and justify the choice by wanting to learn more about Brodie. I'll have to remember that I need to be in a certain mood.