Kate Atkinson’s newest novel When Will There Be Good News? (Little, Brown, $24.99) begins with six-year-old Joanna trotting home from town with her mother and her siblings. They encounter a creepy stranger who interrupts their walk and alters the course of their lives forever. Thirty years later, the man is released from prison, the adult Joanna and her baby disappear from their comfortable Edinburgh suburb, and only the nanny seems to care. Enter Jackson Brodie and Louise Monroe, two flawed yet endearing characters readers will remember from previous Atkinson books, who reluctantly take on the case. As the search for Joanna and her infant escalates and the mysteries multiply, it’ll be hard to put the book down until its stunning conclusion leaves you breathless with surprise.
