55 pages • 1 hour read
Kate AtkinsonDeath at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Book
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Weight of a Weasel”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse and child death.
Jackson researches Renaissance portrait artists in a café. He learns that sitters were often painted with animals from the mustelid family, such as stoats, minks, pine martens, and weasels. Jackson thinks of the missing painting as Woman with a Weasel. He calls his cultured ex-girlfriend Julia, who explains weasels symbolize fertility, and that the portrait was likely painted just before the sitter’s marriage. Exiting the café, Jackson bumps into an attractive woman and is flattered when she laughs flirtatiously.
Jackson interviews Dorothy Padgett’s neighbors, who variously describe Melanie as anywhere from 20 to 40 years old, with either blonde or brown hair. However, they all agree she was “very pleasant.” He also discovers that Ottershall House burned down in 1945 before the auction at which Hazel claims their father bought the painting. He also finds someone placed a tracker in his jacket pocket but does not remove it. Later, observing Jackson reading Hark! Hark! The Dogs Do Bark, his girlfriend Tatiana dismisses Nancy Styles as “a poor woman’s Agatha Christie” (74).
Jackson suspects that the Padgetts did not report the painting’s theft because someone in their family had stolen it from elsewhere. He visits Dorothy’s neighbor, Bob Gordon, who has doorbell camera footage of Melanie Hope. Jackson notes that she looks familiar. Bob reveals that his grandson photographed Dorothy’s painting so that she could have it valued, and he had witnessed a codicil to Dorothy’s will the week before she died.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Leg”
Since quitting the Army, 34-year-old Ben Jenning has been living with his sister Fran. They live in the dairyman’s cottage on the Burton Makepeace estate. Ten years ago, Ben briefly died after an explosion in Helman province. He was resuscitated with a defibrillator, and his leg was amputated. His fiancée Jemima left him shortly afterward.
Fran is the only family member who understands Ben’s panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A former veterinarian, she treats injured animals and takes in “waifs and strays” (98). Ben tends to Fran’s beehives and rarely leaves the property. However, he occasionally visits St Martin’s Church. Reverend Simon Cate told him that St Benedict is the patron saint of beekeepers and explained that bees are thought to be “intermediaries between this world and the world of the spirit” (97). This is why beekeepers share the news of family births, marriages, and deaths with their bees. When Simon blessed his beehives, the ceremony profoundly affected Ben.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis”
Researching the history of missing art, Jackson wonders if Harold Padgett stole Woman with a Weasel while in Berlin with the Army during World War II. He reads about a case in Scotland where a Rembrandt disappeared at the same time as a cleaner named Cheryl McDaid. He also discovers that a Turner painting was stolen from nearby Burton Makepeace House two years earlier. The chief suspect, Sophie Greenway, was never found, and Jackson wonders if the same woman stole all three artworks.
Jackson visits a funeral home, claiming to be Dorothy Padgett’s nephew and asking to pay his respects. The funeral director tells him that Dorothy’s great-niece Hannah just visited and describes her as blonde with brown or green eyes and a pale pink manicure. Jackson notes the cheap coffin the Padgett twins selected for their mother.
Viewing Dorothy’s body reminds Jackson of his sister’s open coffin after her murder. Jackson wonders if Dorothy had a good life. Recalling Ian’s description of his father Harold as a bully, Jackson remembers how his father often hit him and his mother. He apologizes to Dorothy as he takes out a pair of scissors and cuts a lock of her hair.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Last Rites”
From the moment Simon and Rosalind’s son Isaac was born, he seemed “angry” and rarely slept, and the couple joked that Simon should perform an exorcism. Simon enjoyed his first full night of sleep since Isaac’s birth when the baby was six months old. Enjoying the peace, he waited an hour before checking on Isaac and finding him dead. Although Isaac died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), Simon still feels that his son would have survived if Simon loved him more.
Simon has considered adopting one of Fran’s stray dogs but believes he is unfit to look after a pet. He misses Sophie, who shared his love of nature, and is hurt that she did not say goodbye. Simon has grown accustomed to his lack of voice, using written notes, gestures, and exaggerated facial expressions to communicate. He now leaves his congregation to conduct the Sunday service themselves.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Law and Order”
Reggie is occasionally lonely but believes her career leaves no time for a relationship. Furthermore, she rarely meets a man whom she considers truly handsome. Chief Superintendent Louise Monroe is Reggie’s professional mentor, but before Reggie was a police officer, she and Jackson covered up a double murder that Louise was investigating. Since then, she has also helped Jackson “reassign” the identity of a murderer. However, she is determined not to become involved in any more of Jackson’s investigations.
Reggie recalls unsuccessfully investigating the theft of a Turner painting from Burton Makepeace House. Raised in poverty, Reggie struggled to sympathize with Lady Milton’s claim that her family was destitute. As Reggie thinks about the case, Jackson calls, asking about it. She is afraid of the disorder he may bring to her life but reluctantly agrees to meet.
Jackson explains his theory that the disappearance of Dorothy Padgett’s painting is related to the theft at Burton Makepeace House. When he mentions Melanie Hope’s Nancy Styles novel, Reggie recalls that Sophie Greenway left behind a book by the same author. She is determined to solve the case before Jackson and spends the evening reading The Secret of the Clock Cabinet.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
The introduction of Ben Jennings’ narrative perspective in these chapters develops the novel’s exploration of The Legacy of Loss. Ben is portrayed as psychologically fragile and feeling purposeless due to his leg’s amputation and the domino effect of loss, as his lost limb leads to the end of his Army career and his fiancée’s abandonment. Meanwhile, the source of Simon’s emotional crisis is revealed with the revelation that his baby son tragically died. His “raw grief for that little lost life” is intensified by an unjustified yet overwhelming sense of guilt (115). These losses shape their present lives as they struggle to reshape their identities.
These losses also highlight the significance of The Theatrical Nature of Everyday Life as the two men feel obliged to act differently from how they are feeling. Simon’s development of an exaggeratedly cheery exterior to compensate for his lack of voice highlights how individuals frequently conceal profound despair from others. His tendency to make light of his inner anguish is highlighted when he reflects that “[e]xclamation marks […] made even the most calamitous things sound as if they might be fun or, at worst, a precursor to a joke. ‘Lost my faith!’ ‘Very tired!’ ‘My son died!’” (117). Ben feels similar pressure to maintain a brave face and minimize the devastating impact of the loss of his leg. While Ben and Simon do not talk about their feelings to one another, they feel an unspoken connection due to their losses and the performances they enact every day.
The metafictional tone of the narrative is also highlighted in these chapters with Ben’s appearance. Reading a Nancy Styles novel, Jackson is dismissive of “[i]ts rolling cast of retired Army majors, befuddled vicars and posh aristos” (74). The protagonist’s critique of the genre’s stock characters draws attention to the fact that Ben Jennings, Reverend Simon Cate, and Lady Milton superficially conform to these generic roles. However, by depicting their rich inner lives, the novel transforms traditionally two-dimensional genre stereotypes into complex, rounded characters. This metafictional aspect is also explored through Reggie and Jackson’s relationship: They embody the “buddy cop” trope, in which detectives with contrasting ideologies and methods work together. Reggie’s declaration that “[w]e’re not a partnership, we’re not ‘Brodie and Chase, Detectives’” humorously foreshadows their imminent collaboration (139).
The stolen painting, Woman with a Weasel, appears as a motif in these chapters, drawing parallels between the artwork and the thief who stole it. The enigmatic nature of the Renaissance portrait with its unknown sitter, artist, and origins echoes the elusiveness of the woman who posed as Melanie Hope, who “seemed to have as little provenance as the missing portrait” (70). The conflicting physical descriptions of the live-in carer from Dorothy’s neighbors, differing in eye and hair color, suggest her chameleon-like quality and resistance to definition. As Jackson becomes certain that Melanie Hope and Sophie Greenway are the same person, his hope of proving the innocence of Dorothy’s carer fades. At the same time, witnesses unanimously agree that she was “very pleasant” and took good care of Dorothy. A similarly positive portrait of Sophie emerges through the narratives of Lady Milton and Reverend Simon Cate, who recall how Sophie’s presence positively touched their lives despite being duped by her. The Moral Complexities of Justice are emphasized as Simon ponders if someone can be “a con artist ‘of the first order’” and “transparently honest” (121), complicating the ideas of victim and criminal that are usually clear-cut in the mystery genre.
The paradox of Sophie as both a criminal and an intrinsically decent person is also highlighted through the symbolism of animals and nature. Simon’s friendship with her is forged during “long rambling walks […] pointing out birds and trees to each other, in thrall to nature” (120). Throughout the novel, an appreciation of animals and the natural world is associated with sensitivity, compassion, and egalitarianism. For example, Ben’s sister Fran is equally welcoming to “waifs and strays” of the animal and human variety (98), and her generosity of spirit contrasts with the elitist ideologies of aristocratic families like the Miltons, who keep pheasant and deer for the sole purpose of hunting. This symbolism continues in the spiritual connection Ben and Simon develop with the bees in the novel: The glimmer of hope and solace they feel in the bees’ company reflects an admiration for how they live. The beehive is a model of a peaceful community, which contrasts with Ben’s traumatizing experiences of warfare. Simon also reflects that, unlike humans, bees positively contribute to the world, pollinating flowers and producing honey without harming other creatures.
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