Kate Atkinson’s most recent novels --- LIFE AFTER LIFE, A GOD IN RUINS and TRANSCRIPTION --- offered innovative, massively inventive approaches to constructing historical fiction. They are beloved and critically acclaimed, and rightly so. But many readers first fell in love with Atkinson’s writing through her four books about Jackson Brodie --- and they will be pleased to discover that, after a hiatus of eight years, she has returned with a new thriller featuring her beloved detective.

A similar amount of time has passed in Jackson’s world. He’s now living on the east coast of England, taking a cautious approach to co-parenting his son (and an elderly dog) with his ex-partner, Julia. His adult daughter is engaged to be married, a milestone that’s driving home just how much distance has grown between them. And his private detective business, while busy, is hardly challenging or particularly satisfying work. How fulfilling can it be to trail cheating spouses or pose as a teenage girl online in order to entrap perverts? In short, Jackson is finding himself a bit adrift.

"Atkinson builds an emotional and suspenseful case around issues of childhood trauma (and partial recovery), inherited privilege (and accompanying hubris), and timely topics like sex trafficking."

But, as in the previous installments in this series, Jackson is not even always the central character in this story. Atkinson also focuses on four male middle-aged, upper-middle-class friends, golf buddies who occasionally socialize off the course. Vince, who is in the early stages of a divorce and always sees himself on the outskirts of the friendship enjoyed by the other fellows, is stunned when his soon-to-be ex-wife, Wendy, turns up dead --- her head having been bashed in by a golf club.

This murder overlaps in increasingly suspicious ways with a newly reopened sexual misconduct case, focusing on a decades-old pedophilia ring that supposedly implicated dozens of famous and powerful men. Two young female detectives --- one of whom will be familiar to readers of Atkinson’s prior books --- have been assigned to chase down some new leads. Much to their surprise, their paths keep crossing not only with Vince and his cronies, but also with Jackson’s own investigations and personal connections.

True to form with Atkinson’s mystery novels, the murder that precipitates an investigation and is ostensibly at the center of the narrative is actually not the most important plot point (and, in fact, its eventual resolution is somewhat of a letdown, probably by design). Instead, Atkinson builds an emotional and suspenseful case around issues of childhood trauma (and partial recovery), inherited privilege (and accompanying hubris), and timely topics like sex trafficking. BIG SKY is likely inspired by the real-life case of television personality Jimmy Savile, which rocked the British media about seven years ago, but it’s not necessary to know about this scandal to appreciate the book.

Jackson Brodie may be a savvy detective, but he’s far from figuring out the messiness that is his personal and professional life. This will give readers hope that Atkinson will find a way to return to this fascinating character, and her remarkable way of telling stories about him, in future novels.