Atkinson is a British novelist known for weaving together comedy, drama and the hallmarks of the detective genre.

Case Histories is literary and multi-layered. At its centre is Jackson Brodie, a private investigator with a little daughter he adores and a past that weighs him down. There are other compelling characters, including the slightly batty Land sisters, Julia and Amelia, whose sister, Olivia, went missing as a toddler. The book opens with the grim reality of their lives as children; their mother's hard-edged despair is palpable to the reader as well as to the girls.

The teen-aged Michelle Fletcher is another desperate mother. We are taken inside her troubled head as Atkinson moves from one point-of-view to another. We're also brought into the mind of the morbidly obese lawyer, Theo Wyre, whose entire life is a memorial to his murdered daughter, Laura.

All the stories intersect, not too obviously and not too cleverly. There are several mysteries, not one, and, through Atkinson's skill, we're left hanging for just the right amount of time.

I read this thriller a few miles from Cambridge, England where it is set and that somehow added atmosphere. I loved the 'Englishness' of this book and the expertise with which Atkinson does under-confidence and self-deprecation. As I wandered the Suffolk countryside with my husband, I looked forward to getting home to our rented cottage each night and tucking up with this often quite moving book.

Memorable line: " Laura who slept curled up in a ball, who liked hot buttered toast and all the Indiana Jones movies but not Star Wars, whose first word was 'dog', who liked the rain but not the wind, who planned to have three children, Laura who would be forever standing by the photocopier in the office in Parkside waiting for the stranger and his knife, waiting for the world to go white. "

Rating (out of five stars):

Publisher: Black Swan, 410 pp.

Terry, Ray, and Leon are young Londoners employed by The Paper, the music bible of their generation.

The son of a Fleet Street scion, Leon has dropped out of college (my alma mater, the London School of Economics) and spends his spare time flogging his socialist fanzine. That is, until he winds up in a disco (no less) where he meets the most beautiful girl in the world. . .

Terry is hopelessly naive about the rock stars he interviews and madly in love with Misty, a girl with more mystery and complications than he bargained for. . .

Ray hails from a tragedy- and violence-riddled home. He is a rock and roll purist, a bent that threatens his long-term future with The Paper, unless he can score an interview with the elusive John Lennon. . .

The story is set in London on the night Elvis died. It's the same night all three boys are forced to face their demons and begin to move into the dryer years of adulthood.

I spent three years in London as a graduate student, often tripping the light fantastic despite niggling financial problems. Parsons' successful conjuring of late night London—the ghastly night buses, the wildly eccentric characters, the brooding atmosphere—brought me right back there, adding to its poignancy.

If you read this feature regularly, you can tell I'm on a fiction roll and was thrilled with the bookstores in England during my recent time there.

Memorable line: "And sometimes Ray felt like his entire life was about trying to get back to that moment, to recover that day when suddenly it didn't matter that he knew no one and his clothes were all wrong, that schoolyard in 1969 where the children sang, na-na-na, yeah-yeah-yeah and love-love-love is all you need."

Rating (out of five stars):

Publisher: HarperCollins, London, 342 pp.

Note: Check out Tina's blog and her FAQ section about the book @ tinachaulk.com

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