When a present-day private investigator becomes involved with three old, sad murders, he doesn’t know the strength of the thin threads that will weave the stories together. Whodunnit turns out to be less interesting than how the survivors have managed to keep on living. Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories: A Novel is funny and filled with quirky and likable characters, each one in deeper distress than the last. And what’s a nice guy like Jackson doing looking for love in such unlikely places? Were it not for the Cambridge, England setting, this book would translate seamlessly to an episode in the newly popular Cold Case-style t.v. show. Well, maybe a whole series.