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Outstanding
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Booklist Joanne Wilkinson
Playful humor, an impressive technique, and an offbeat detective with a penchant for weeping are the most obvious pleasures of a page-turner that succeeds in being both brainy and thoroughly entertaining. [Aug. 2004, p. 1870]
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Elisabeth Egan
Case Histories combines the suspense of a whodunit with the richly textured plot of a sprawling family saga. The result is top-notch literature -- an unforgettable, unclassifiable read.
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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Katie Owen
Tethered firmly to powerful emotions and credible characters, Case Histories is a triumphant return to form: a tragi-comedy for our times.
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Outstanding
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
[A] delightful, fascinating, and bitingly funny read.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Wonderful fun and very moving: it's a pleasure to see this talented writer back on form.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Jenn B. Stidham
Superfluous plot elements involving attempts on Brodie's life and the running commentary on Brodie's musical tastes may lead to comparisons with Ian Rankin's Inspector John Rebus series but only briefly, for this is a very new world of old crimes. [15 Sept. 2004, p. 47]
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Favorable
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Washington Post Jeff Turrentine
Kate Atkinson... seems to have intuited that the most compelling mystery of all isn't necessarily whodunit, but rather howtodealwithit
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Noel Murray
For all its preoccupation with sorrow... the book is light, funny, and poignant--leisurely, but never wasteful. It's like an object lesson on how to live with dying.
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Roberta Silman
This is a novel that looks at murder and the profound loss that accompanies it with an unusually clear eye.
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Favorable
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PopMatters
Kate Atkinson's Case Histories is a Mystery, but rarely do Mysteries strike the tenuous balance between comedy and tragedy so well.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Scott M. Morris
Case Histories... at first might seem to fit into the crime genre. But the principal pleasures to be found are not simply who did what to whom. Instead, [Atkinson] focuses on the psychological damage her characters bear, tracking their attempts to discover what has happened to them as well as what it means. [12 Dec. 2004, R10]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
Atkinson's meaty, satisfying prose will attract many eager readers.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Timothy Peters
[I]n an era when sophisticated, literary novels are all too often about nothing but existential issues -- nihilistic disaffection -- "Case Histories" stands out as a wistful, heartbreaking and hopeful novel about real disasters.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Carrie O'Grady
I suspect that this is one of those protean novels that will resonate differently according to its readers' own private tragedies ... But everyone who picks it up will feel compelled to follow Case Histories through to the last page - and not just for closure.
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Favorable
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The Independent Colin Greenland
Atkinson is always perceptive and engaging, and this time perhaps a degree less antic in her postmodern playfulness.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
It winds up having more depth and vividness than ordinary thrillers and more thrills than ordinary fiction, with a constant awareness of perils swirling beneath its surface.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Jacqueline Carey
"Case Histories" is so exuberant, so empathetic, that it makes most murder-mystery page-turners feel as lifeless as the corpses they're strewn with.
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Mixed
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The Spectator Digby Durrant
As if to confirm that Atkinson doesn’t mean us to take any of this too seriously a fairytale ending is inevitable.
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Mixed
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London Review Of Books Tessa Hadley
Safety is a dream, not a possibility, and the novel suggests it is a dangerous dream.
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