In a quiet corner of rural Devon, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime, Andrew Decker, is released from prison. In Edinburgh, sixteen-year-old Reggie, wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for a GP. But Dr. Hunter has gone missing and Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried. Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is an old friend - Jackson Brodie - himself on a journey that is about to be fatally interrupted. In an extraordinary virtuoso display, Kate Atkinson produces one of the most engrossing, brilliantly written and piercingly insightful novels of this or any year. "When Will There Be Good News?" sheds new light on to the nature of fate, and on to the human condition itself.