It's been eight years since Atkinson's last Jackson Brodie mystery (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011), and, while the three historical novels she has written since then all with some connection to WWII have been uniformly brilliant, fans of the ever-brooding, painfully tenderhearted private investigator will be thrilled that Brodie is finally back. He's living in a remote cottage near the sea in Yorkshire, but somehow he still finds no shortage of troubled souls washing up around him needing help. It begins with a runaway bride and a sad sack with suicide on his mind, and, from there, Jackson's menagerie of broken-winged creatures leads him into something much darker, something that will thoroughly reinforce his ingrained pessimism. (""Have you ever tried being an optimist?"" Jackson's former partner, actress Julia, asks him. ""Once,"" Jackson replies. ""It didn't suit me."") Using her signature narrative style, Atkinson not only tells the story from multiple points of view, but also moves back and forth in time, letting us see new sides of an incident from several characters' perspectives. This technique feeds a rich kind of dramatic irony, as we know marginally more than the people in any one scene do, but never quite enough. As the lives of several Yorkshire couples slowly swirl out of control, with the ripples of dysfunction, buried abuse, and tightly held secrets gradually drawing Jackson into their red tide, we marvel at Atkinson's rare ability to create in a relatively few but stunningly deft brushstrokes at least a half-dozen characters with the depth and complexity to own their own novel. Another dazzler from a writer whose talents know no bounds.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Atkinson's blend of literary fiction and crime novel attracts readers in great numbers from both those constituencies.--Bill Ott Copyright 2019 Booklist

Jackson Brodie is back.This is Atkinson's fifth Jackson Brodie novel (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011, etc.), but fans know that the phrase "Jackson Brodie novel" is somewhat deceptive. Yes, he is the hero in that he is a private investigatorformer cop, military veteranwho solves (usually) mysteries. But he is not so much the central character as the grumpy, anxious, largehearted gravitational field that attracts a motley assortment of lost souls and love interests. In this latest outing, Jackson is a half-duty parent to his teenage son while the boy's mother, an actor, finishes her run on a detective series. Vince Ives is a more-or-less successful middle-class husband and father until his wife leaves him, his boss makes him redundant, and he becomes a murder suspect. Crystal Holroydnot her real namehas built a brilliant new life for herself, but someone from her past is threatening her daughter. Both Vince and Crystal seek help from Jackson, with varying results. Meanwhile, Jackson's protge, Reggie Chase, has risen through the ranks in the police force and is taking a fresh look at an old case. That these stories intertwine is a given. "A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen" is one of Jackson's maxims; it could also serve as an ironic epigram for Atkinson's approach to the mystery genre. A small cast of characters collides and careens in a manner that straddles Greek tragedy and screwball comedy. The humor is sly rather than slapstick, and Atkinson is keenly interested in inner lives and motivations. There are villains, certainlyhuman trafficking and the sexual abuse of children figure prominently herebut even the sympathetic characters are complicated and compromised. Jackson has a strong moral code, but his behavior is often less than ethical. The same is true of Vince, Crystal, and Reggie. The deaths and disappearances that Jackson investigates change with every book, but the human heart remains the central mystery.The welcome return of an existential detective. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

AMERICAN MOONSHOT: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, by Douglas Brinkley. (Harper/ HarperCollins, $35.) In his study of the politics behind Apollo ll's launch, Brinkley fits the space program into a wider American social context. He also asks whether the program was worth the tens of billions it cost, and argues that for its technological advances alone, it was. ORIGINAL PRIN, by Randy Boyagoda. (John Metcalf/Biblioasis, paper, $14.95.) This highly original novel traces an unexceptional professor's path to becoming a suicide bomber. The comedy of literary and cultural references involves unfunny matters like cancer, a crisis of faith and Islamic terrorism, as well as easier comic subjects like juice-box fatherhood and academia. BIG SKY, by Kate Atkinson. (Little, Brown, $28.) After a nine-year absence, Atkinson's laconic private eye, Jackson Brodie, returns to deliver his idiosyncratic brand of justice to crime victims in a case involving human trafficking. THE PLAZA: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel, by Julie Satow. (Twelve, $29.) Satow's gossip-stuffed tale traces the history of one of New York's most iconic landmarks, the imposing white chateau at the corner of 59th and Fifth. THE WHITE DEVILS DAUGHTERS: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown, by Julia Flynn Siler. (Knopf, $28.95.) From the Gold Rush to the 1930s, a sex slave trade flourished in San Francisco's Chinatown. Siler's colorful history includes portraits of the determined women who helped thousands of Chinese girls escape to freedom. ORANGE WORLD: And Other Stories, by Karen Russell. (Knopf, $25.95.) Florida is the original or adopted home of some of America's most inventive fiction writers, Russell prominent among them. Her new collection is a feat of literary alchemy, channeling her home state's weirdness into unexpectedly affecting fantastical scenarios and landscapes. STRANGERS AND COUSINS, by Leah Hager Cohen. (Riverhead, $27.) Cheerful and lively, Cohen's new novel - set at an anarchic family gathering in rural New York - packs a lot of themes into its satisfyingly simple frame. As in a Shakespearean comedy, disparate relationships are resolved and familial love prevails. WAR AND PEACE: FDR's Final Odyssey, D-Day to Yalta, 19431945, by Nigel Hamilton. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30.) The final volume in the "F.D.R. at War" trilogy presents a heroic Roosevelt fending off myopic advisers to lead the Allies to victory. ASSAD OR WE BURN THE COUNTRY: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria, by Sam Dagher. (Little, Brown, $29.) Dagher draws on history, interviews and his own experience as a reporter in Syria to depict an utterly ruthless regime. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Atkinson's slow-moving fifth Jackson Brodie novel (after 2010's Started Early, Took My Dog) finds the former policeman turned PI, who's now based on the east coast of Yorkshire, grappling with parenting. Brodie, who endured a traumatic childhood-a mother lost to cancer, a sister murdered, and a brother who committed suicide-shares custody of 13-year-old Nathan Land, who has an "ego big enough to swallow planets whole," with Nathan's mother, Julia. Though Brodie has some routine work surveilling a suspected cheating spouse, the action only hits high gear relatively late when he happens upon a man about to jump off a cliff, Vince Ives, whose wife, Wendy, was recently fatally bludgeoned with a golf club. Brodie manages to save Vince's life, and his look into Wendy's death involves him in an ugly case of human trafficking. Atkinson has been better at balancing personal and professional story lines, and the presence of a figure from Jackson's past, now a cop involved in an inquiry looking at establishment figures, won't resonate for first-timers. Series fans will best appreciate this outing. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Management. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.