One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson

The second of Atkinson's murder mysteries, this novel includes some of the same characters but is set two years after the first. Fortunately, it doesn't rely upon the first but stands independently as a novel in its own right; relevant incidents are casually thrown into the narrative - 'He had once watched his own house explode.' That's fortunate for me, at least, as I haven't read 'Case Histories', which is the highly regarded predecessor of this novel. In fact, because events in the two novels are so disparate (according to my research, anyway,) I imagine you could quite comfortably read the first after reading the second - if you wanted to... I like reading ...  Read the complete review

Kate Atkinson writes good meaty books so when my sister gave me this to read I was really pleased. One Good Turn did not disappoint although it was different to other Kate Atkinson books that I have read which were not all mystery books. The book is set in Edinburgh at Festival time. I loved the fact that Atkinson used lots of little details to set the scene. She describes some of the many grotty venues where plays are put on and I really felt that I had been transported to the festival. Plot The story starts with a road rage incident involving a man with a baseball bat. A number of onlookers become involved and their stories ...  Read the complete review

I was surprised when I first saw this novel as I had previously associated Kate Atkinson with literary fiction rather than detective novels. I had read the Orange prize winning 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum', which I think is brilliant, but the next book of hers I tried; Emotionally Weird, I thought was dreadful and didn't get very far into it before giving up in disgust. This one looked completely different from either of those and the combination of a look at the first few pages, a glimpse at the cover quotes (I can be a bit of a sucker for those), and the fact that I was in a charity shop where it was priced at 80p, made my purchasing decision fairly ...  Read the complete review

I am a big fan of Kate Atkinson's books, so when I spotted her novel one good turn at my local car boot sale I was very happy. The plot ******* One good turn is a basically a mystery detective story with many twists. The story begins with a violent road rage attack. Set in Edinburgh at the time of the Edinburgh festival, the attack is witnessed by people queuing for a show. The attack changes the lives of all those involved, the victim, perpurtrator and witnesses. The characters include an unscrupulous property dealer and his long-suffering wife, a crime writer, a has been comedian, a female detective and her son, a Russian call girl and Jackson ...  Read the complete review