The title of Kate Atkinson’s latest book (When Will There Be Good News) poses a timely question, but has nothing to do with the current state of the economy. It is the third in Atkinson’s series of mysteries featuring the quirky, retired detective Jackson Brodie, who despite a personal history marked by sorrow and tragedy, manages to remain good hearted and humane. As in Atkinson’s two previous Brodie novels, Case Histories and One Good Turn, the very likeable Jackson Brodie has a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for being misunderstood by almost everyone he encounters.

In this story, we meet 36 year old Dr. Joanna Hunter, sole survivor of the gruesome mass murder of her family when she was a small child. Joanna is now a successful doctor devoted to raising her baby son with the able assistance of Reggie, a wretched but plucky teenage orphan with a sunny outlook. Jackson becomes unintentionally entangled in their lives when he travels to Scotland on a personal mission and is asked to help find Joanna, who has mysteriously gone missing on the very day the man convicted of her family’s murder is released from prison.

The story is fast-paced, filled with deliciously creepy characters and so many twists and turns from bad to worse that the reader can’t put the book down for want of an answer to the question, "When will there be good news?"