One Good Turn (Paperback, New Edition)

A murder mystery with comic overtones from the award-winning British storyteller.Resurrecting Jackson Brodie, the private eye from Case Histories (2004), Atkinson confects a soft-hearted thriller, short on menace but long on empathy and introspection. Her intricate, none-too-serious plot is triggered by an act of road rage witnessed by assorted characters in Edinburgh during the annual summer arts festival. Mysterious possible hit man "Paul Bradley" is rear-ended by Terence Smith, a hard-man with a baseball bat who is stopped from beating Bradley to a pulp by mild-mannered crime-novelist Martin Canning, who throws his laptop at him. Other onlookers include Brodie, accompanied by his actress girlfriend, Julia; Gloria Hatter, wife of fraudulent property-developer Graham Hatter (of Hatter Homes, Real Homes for Real People); and schoolboy Archie, son of single-mother policewoman Louise Monroe, who lives in a crumbling Hatter home. Labyrinthine, occasionally farcical plot developments repeatedly link the group. Rounding out the criminal side of the story are at least two dead bodies; an omniscient Russian dominatrix who even to Gloria seems "like a comedy Russian"; and a mysterious agency named Favors. Brodie's waning romance with Julia and waxing one with Louise; a dying cat; children; dead parents and much more are lengthily considered as Atkinson steps away from the action to delve into her characters' personalities. Clearly, this is where her heart lies, not so much with the story's riddles, the answers to which usually lie with Graham Hatter, who has been felled by a heart attack and remains unconscious for most of the story. There are running jokes and an enjoyable parade of neat resolutions, but no satisfying denouement. Everything is connected, often amusingly or cleverly, but nothing matters much.A technically adept and pleasurable tale, but Atkinson isn't stretching herself. (Kirkus Reviews)

'An absolute joy to read...the pleasure of One Good Turn lies in the ride, in Atkinson's wry, unvanquished characters, her swooping, savvy, sarcastic prose and authorial joie de vivre' Guardian

The second Jackson Brodie novel (after Case Histories): literary crime from the prizewinning, number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription.

It is summer, it is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident - a near-homicidal attack which changes the lives of everyone involved. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander - until he becomes a murder suspect.

As the body count mounts, each member of the teeming Dickensian cast's story contains a kernel of the next, like a set of nesting Russian dolls. They are all looking for love or money or redemption or escape: but what each actually discovers is their own true self.

General

Imprint:	Black Swan
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Jackson Brodie
Release date:	July 2007
First published:	July 2007
Authors:	Kate Atkinson
Dimensions:	197 x 127 x 32mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	526
Edition:	New Edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-552-77244-0
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Crime & mystery > General Promotions
LSN:	0-552-77244-5
Barcode:	9780552772440

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