Started Early, Took My Dog Audiobook By Kate Atkinson cover art

Started Early, Took My Dog

A Novel

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Started Early, Took My Dog

By: Kate Atkinson
Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
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About this listen

Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective - a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other - or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly.

Suddenly burdened with a small child, Tracy soon learns her parental inexperience is actually the least of her problems, as much larger ones loom for her and her young charge.

Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie, the beloved detective of novels such as Case Histories, is embarking on a different sort of rescue - that of an abused dog. Dog in tow, Jackson is about to learn, along with Tracy, that no good deed goes unpunished.

©2010 Kate Atkinson (P)2011 Hachette Audio
Mystery Suspense Dogs Witty Fiction
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Editorial reviews

Hard-boiled with a heart of gold what more do you want in a private eye? But Jackson Brodie, in Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog, is no stereotypical gumshoe. For one thing, the Yorkshireman reads Emily Dickinson, quoted in the novel’s title. A recurrent character in previous Atkinson novels, Brodie here shares a plot with the equally compelling Tracy Waterhouse, a retired Police Superintendent turned mall cop.

Atkinson’s wonderfully woven tale features more complex and credible characters than are often found in the murder mystery genre. And narrator Graeme Malcolm realizes them with pitch-perfect, understated brio befitting the grief, longing, jadedness, and cautious joy they variously express. While the characters all possess been-around-the block, self-mocking voices, Malcolm, while making each personality distinct, conveys the raw and secret sorrow that’s within them all underneath the cynicism.

Early in the story, Tracy acts on a radical impulse. Middle-aged and single, she takes a child actually purchases one from a criminal and abusive mother. Handing the mother a wad of cash intended for home renovations in exchange for a bedraggled 4-year-old girl, Tracy begins a fugitive life, instantly, unsentimentally mothering on the fly. She’s pursued, but not, as she assumes, for kidnapping, but because years earlier she investigated the murder of a prostitute before superiors took the case from her. That case featured the first of the novel’s many ‘lost children’: the prostitute’s son.

This same crime draws Brodie’s interest on behalf of a client seeking her biological mother. Forever haunted by the murder of his sister when he was a child, Brodie is aware of his penchant for lost girls and the women they have become, both professionally and in his failed marriages.

Meanwhile, there is a third central character, the elderly, increasingly senile actress, Tilly Squires, playing her last role on a TV soap and still mourning the baby she aborted decades ago, while under the spell of a rival actress ‘friend’. Malcolm movingly and without melodrama takes us afloat her streams of consciousness and stumblings for elusive words and wallets.

Atkinson’s plot threads back and forth between the 1970s and the present; Malcolm agilely indicates time changes with the subtlest of pauses and inflections. Shepherding us through the unraveling of the mystery, he lets us experience the palpable sense Atkinson conveys of the profound, unremitting consequences born of an abandoned or neglected child. But in the end, we also feel, as Dickinson notes, that hope can be “heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea”. Elly Schull Meeks

What listeners say about Started Early, Took My Dog

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Pleasant surprise

I downloaded this book as a filler in until I got my next credits, and chose it strictly for its quirky title. (I never heard of the author.) I hoped it would be a good listen, and I wasn't disappointed. The characters are well formed and real, not ultra glamourous, as they have been in some of the books I've listened to recently. The plot held my interest throughout. It also had that real effect. It was a story that could plausibly happen to any of us, and kept me listening to find out how everything would turn out in the end. The narrator's British accent threw me off at first, only because I had to listen just a tad bit closer to understand the words. Once I got used to it, I found his voice smooth and delightful to listen to. I look forward to listening to another one of Ms. Atkinson's books. This one deserves all five stars.

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20 people found this helpful

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Second Reading just as enjoyable.

This is Kate Atkinson at her best: wise, funny, pithy. Her stories and people, all flawed, but they are so loveably human. When Tracy described her parents as living past their sell by date, I laughed out loud and hope I won't come to that fate. Jackson Brody, detective, tries to find an adoptee's biological parents. Seems simple but he is almost killed trying. Meantime, retired police woman Tracy decides to buy a little girl off an abusive parent, so she will have someone to love. And then there is aging actress Tilly who wanders in and out of the plot. Read this book.

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3 people found this helpful

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One of my all time favorites

Charming story. Excellent reading. Sounds silly, but this book makes me laugh and cry every time I listen. Big thumbs up.

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Really enjoyable

I'm not quite sure why I enjoyed this so much, but I did so I thought I should say so. I have read the others in this series, and watched them on PBS and enjoyed them too, but this one was just sort of a romp and I liked that. It jumps around quite a bit but all comes together, sort of, in the end, so stick with it.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Started Early, Took My Dog

Another terrific novel from Kate Atkinson. This was my first Audiobook and now I think I'm hooked. The narration was terrific. I have a 1 hour communte each way and this made the time fly. I found I was actually looking forward to the drive.

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4th Jackson Brodie novel a disappointment

We have loved the first three novels by Kate Atkinson about her protagonist Jackson Brodie and his friends and adversaries. We also really liked the audible presentation of the recent 5th book in the series, ‘The Big Sky.’ So we were quite disappointed by this 4th book in the series. The plot was cluttered with implausible coincidences, the author played unnecessary tricks on the reader to deceive—e.g., by inserting a second investigator named Jackson in order to confuse. And the reader/narrator was tediously solemn, with seemingly no effort made to capture the different styles of speech of the different characters.

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Pay Attention--and Stick With It

The title of this book has a whimsical sound to it--kind of like a fun romp through the day with the pup. In fact, it is a story about normal lives that sometimes take tragic turns that make it impossible to go back no matter how much they might want to.

Don't get me wrong, though. Overall this was not a sad or depressing tale--but it could have been were it not for the expert subtle handling of each character by Kate Atkinson and the superb narration by Graeme Malcolm. Sometimes I actually laughed out loud.

I note other reviews that indicate "couldn't finish" or "hard to follow" and I agree this could be the case if you don't make an effort to pay attention early on. It gets much easier to put things together as it progresses--and you will be rewarded with some rich dialogue if you hang in there.

Sure there are a lot of people to keep straight--a Tracy, Tilly, Courtney, Jackson, another Jackson, Linda, Kitty, etc. They each have a role to play and are crucial to the outcome. If you liked this author's other works, I think you will like this one. Even though the detective has appeared in previous books, this is not really a series which must be read from the first. It might help, but not necessary.

Thoroughly enjoyed and recommended!

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Dog Saves Man

Abused child and dog rescued. Good people win. Loved the book. However, I've listened to many books narrated by Graeme Malcolm, and just wish he wouldn't sing song so much.

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Could listen to this again and again

There's nothing more delicious than Graeme Malcolm reading this novel, especially when character Tracy Waterhouse is in the scene. I am stunned by the humanity that Atkinson and Malcolm together create -- with her amazing writing and Malcolm's ability to capture every nuance of meaning. The plot is complex, but it's the individual moments that are so rich.

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Not her best, but still...

This took a while to get into but once Jackson Brodie appeared I was hooked. The story is okay, but I don't read Kate Atkinson for that. She slays me with her dry wit and keen observations of the fragile webs we weave as we move through a very gray moral landscape.

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