Review - STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, Kate Atkinson - audio

Product Details

ISBN: 9781846572814
Format:Audio
Imprint: Audio RH UK
Published: 01/09/10

Source: loan from a friend
Warning: What I listened to was an abridged version, approx 6 hours, on 5 CDs, but I think there may also be an unabridged one.
Narrator:  Jason Isaacs

Publisher's blurb
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.

Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.

My take:
I feel a little guilty at having listened to an abridged version, but you know what they say about looking a gift horse in the mouth. My guilt stems particularly from the fact that I have an unabridged version on my Kindle.

I always wonder what the "abridgers" cut out in these versions, what have I missed out on?

However, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG.
I must admit I have come away without any idea what the title actually means (perhaps that was in a bit that was abridged).

The publisher's promo says

Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains.

This plot dovetailing takes the reader down paths that you just don't expect, leaving you second-guessing from sketchy clues. STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG spans from the mid 1970s when Tracy Waterhouse was just a WPC to the present day when she has just retired as a Superintendent and has taken a job supervising security in a shopping centre. Something that happens in the 70s reaches out and climbs into the 21st century with devastating results.

My rating: 4.6

This is #4 in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series:
Jackson Brodie
1. Case Histories (2004)
2. One Good Turn (2006)
3. When Will There Be Good News (2008)
4. Started Early, Took My Dog (2010)

It reminded me that I still haven't read CASE HISTORIES, although somewhere I do have a copy.

My other reviews, both rated at 4.8:
ONE GOOD TURN
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?