Weaving diversions into a tidy package

BIG SKY by Kate Atkinson

(Penguin Random House, $38)

Having a new Kate Atkinson novel waiting on your bedside table is like that Christmas Eve feeling of seeing gifts under the tree and knowing that something good is coming your way. But, no matter what, you cannot open that cover yet.

Only when you have finished the book you are already reading are you allowed to sweep that hard, blue cover to the left and reunite with the lugubrious Jackson Brodie and his assorted hang-ups.

In Big Sky we find the detective — whom we earlier met in Case Histories, One Good Turn ,W hen Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog — now living in a quiet and picturesque village on the Yorkshire coast. His life is occupied