Kate Atkinson is decidedly humorous...British-"y" humorous. Meaning that many Americans may not like her humor. Her mothers are very unsentimental and often unlikeable. One of the mothers in this novel is a murderer, for crying out loud. Case Histories is a detective novel/thriller and is a departure from Atkinson's more literary previous endeavors, like Emotionally Weird or her Whitbread Award-winning novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
