This is Kate Atkinson’s sixth in her series of Jackson Brody novels. Brody is former British police, now private investigator, called upon to look for a stolen painting: Lady with a Weasel. The question of who stole the renaissance oil painting is secondary. Front and center is Atkinson’s delightful send-up of two of Britain’s most hallowed traditions. In one part of her farce, a lunatic of a family live in a Downtown Abbey-like mansion called Burton Makepeace. While Atkinson destroys the obsession with old money and crazy old Ladies of the house, she also dismantles the British preoccupation with murder mysteries. A bedraggled, over-the-top, full-of-itself, not-very-talented, understaffed troupe of actors host a murder-mystery dinner in Burton Makepeace mansion. In a nod to Agatha Christie, all of the main characters find themselves trapped in a single location (a vicious snowstorm makes travel impossible) to solve a real crime, while Jackson Brody tries to make sense of it all. A fine escapist read for troubling times.
