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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from Newstalk.

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Speaker 2: ZEDB nineteen to twelve on news talk EDB. Two new

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Speaker 2: books have taken the attention of our book reviewer Katherine Rains.

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Speaker 2: This week she's with us. Now, Hey, Catherine, Morning Jack.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with Death at the Sign of the Rook

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Speaker 2: by Kate Atkinson.

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Speaker 3: So this is one of those cozy mystery series and

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Speaker 3: this book has a cast of weird and wonderful characters

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Speaker 3: along with a crime or two. And this is the

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Speaker 3: sixth book in her Jackson Brodie series. And in this one,

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Speaker 3: Dorothy Paget dies and Jackson is asked by her twins

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Speaker 3: Hazel and I to look for a painting that's missing

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Speaker 3: from her bedroom. And it happens to be a Renaissance

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Speaker 3: air portrait and they claim that they don't know what

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Speaker 3: it's worth and they just want it back for sentimental reasons.

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Speaker 3: And they have surmised that Dorothy's Kira, a woman called

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Speaker 3: Melanie Hope, took it when she left, but they don't

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Speaker 3: want to involve the police. And Jackson's has you know

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Speaker 3: that tingling at the back of the spine where there's

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Speaker 3: something decidedly shifty about the pair of these, but he

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Speaker 3: checks into it anyway, and he discovers that on his

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Speaker 3: phone as a burner, and he checks out her address,

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Speaker 3: which happens to be fake, and the painting's prominence is

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Speaker 3: a bit dodgy as well. And then he does a

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Speaker 3: little research into art theft and he finds some interesting

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Speaker 3: cases and some other thefts, and one from was from

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Speaker 3: a place called Burton Makepeace House, which was the home

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Speaker 3: of Mark West and March s Milton and the DC

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Speaker 3: a guy called Reggie Chase had investigated this without success.

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Speaker 3: So Jackson goes and it has a chat to him

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Speaker 3: and is there a connection between the two thefts? And

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Speaker 3: the plot has a bit of a feel of an

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Speaker 3: Agatha Christie about a stately home. There's aristocrats, there's missing

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Speaker 3: but works. There's a biggar who's lost the power of speech,

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Speaker 3: a group of actors who are putting on this murder

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Speaker 3: mystery weekend, and of course there's a snowstorm and thus

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Speaker 3: snowed in. So yet that closed and feeling about the book.

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Speaker 3: There's some serious themes that she tackles as well, about

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Speaker 3: grief and loss and post traumatic stress disorder. But there's

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Speaker 3: lots of humor too, and great dialogue and British characters

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Speaker 3: with their very dry black humor, and her strength is

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Speaker 3: really in the characters and the monologues. And so you

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Speaker 3: get this clever book with different characters and storylines that

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Speaker 3: all link together and it's fast faced and fun and

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Speaker 3: you know, like that golden age of crime writer and

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Speaker 3: I really.

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Speaker 2: Enjoyed it very good. Okay, that's Death at the Sign

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Speaker 2: of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. Go on, then tell

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Speaker 2: us about Lee Child's latest safe Enough.

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Speaker 3: So this is actually a collection of twenty short stories,

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Speaker 3: and you move away from a Lee Child's very well

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Speaker 3: known character of Jack Creature and focus on a number

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Speaker 3: of individual situations. So you get lots of themes and

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Speaker 3: time periods and perspectives and cos Lee Child has a

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Speaker 3: very good gift for story telling, and so he spins

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Speaker 3: stories about FBI agents and failed bodyguards and the od

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Speaker 3: drug dealer or two, and everybody making their way in

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Speaker 3: the world and trying to give their life a sense

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Speaker 3: of purpose. And so there's really something for everyone, like

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Speaker 3: about that investigating and perpetrating crime and in which side

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Speaker 3: they fall on, and those time periods, and it's stories

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Speaker 3: like the Bodyguard, which is a political kidnapping, and safe Enough,

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Speaker 3: which is an electrician who becomes involved in a missing

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Speaker 3: person's case, and normal in every way, a young police

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Speaker 3: file ax like this database putting pieces of the crime together,

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Speaker 3: and managers set in the fifties, so before computers could

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Speaker 3: do or before you could google everything, and so, and

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Speaker 3: then you get some without that sort of thriller and

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Speaker 3: well known sort of violent side that check Rereacher has.

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Speaker 3: And there's a couple with a writer as a protagonist,

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Speaker 3: which is interesting, and one of them is called Dying

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Speaker 3: for a Cigarette. And with all of these there's a

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Speaker 3: twist in each story, and you can often be surprised

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Speaker 3: by what the twist turns out to be and what

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Speaker 3: the payoff is. But one of the really interesting parts

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Speaker 3: of this book is right in the beginning in the prologue,

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Speaker 3: Lee Child talks about his writing career and how this

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Speaker 3: collection came about and some interesting antidotes and you know,

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Speaker 3: and why he's written these stories over the years, and

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Speaker 3: you know, he really is a well crafted short story writer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. It's

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Speaker 2: something a bit different from Lee Child too, which sounds

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Speaker 2: really exciting, so thank you, Catherine. That's Safe Enough by

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Speaker 2: Lee Child. That first book was Death at the Sign

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Speaker 2: of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. Of course, all the

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Speaker 2: details for those books will be up on our websites

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Speaker 2: right now.

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Speaker 1: It's quarter for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news Talks ed B from nine am Saturday,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.