Eventually Turns into a Page Turner (One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson)

Member Name: noodlesandwich

Product:	One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
Date:	24/07/09 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, complex plot

Disadvantages: slow starter

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 easy.

The story begins from the point of view of a mystery man who is attacked in what seems like a road rage incident outside a venue at the Edinburgh Festival, (one of the things that drew me into buying this was a fondness for Edinburgh itself and the familiarity of the setting). There are several witnesses to this incident, some of whom we are introduced to in the succeeding chapters. These first few chapters although well written and entertaining enough didn't really draw me in. I think it can be a risk to use a lot of different character viewpoints as here, and I don't think it always works that well. Of course it can work very well, but in this case I felt it went too far the wrong way at first, as it wasn't until chapter six that we returned to a character we had already met, by which time I was finding the new viewpoints tiresome.

The first returnee was Martin, a timid writer, who had been uncharacteristically brave in the first chapter and come to the aid of the victim by flinging his bag at the attacker. I thought Martin was going to be the main character, but it turns out that Jackson Brodie, an ex-detective, is meant to be the hero. Brodie was a character in Atkinson's previous novel, Case Histories. I do like his name, it resonates cool, tough, brooding - I wonder if it was inspired by 'The Professionals'? :) There is roughly even space given to Martin, Jackson and Gloria - an ageing housewife to a corrupt businessman. Gloria was my favourite character - a seemingly staid stereotypical middle aged 'nice' woman, who gradually becomes more intriguing, funny and actually quite scary. Chapters are also written from the point of view of police officer Louise and her son Archie.

The story takes quite a relaxed pace to begin with, but maybe a bit too relaxed as it takes time to develop any feeling for the characters. I could have stopped reading this in the early stages and not been too bothered, but it obviously had enough about it to keep some sort of interest and thankfully the pace does start to pick up at around about chapter 11, (of 59), as does the body count. Things become more and more complex as we find out how different lives are intertwined. Sometimes I felt like it was a bit too predictable in it's unpredictability, if that makes sense. It's written with plenty of humour, much of it dark, and leads to a slightly farcical climactic scene before winding down and saying goodbye to each of the characters in their own style. We don't actually find out what our mystery man was up to, and why, until the very last line of the book which gives it quite a wry ending, although perhaps not entirely unexpected.

I think One Good Turn is a competent well written thriller with some very good characterisation and interesting twists and turns. I found it a touch self conscious - for example the references to Russian dolls that litter the book felt to me as though the author was saying, 'look I'm being clever, this book is laid out like a set of Russian dolls - so here are some Russian dolls, just in case you don't get it.' Occasionally the writing style made me think of the author rather than the story, but overall the characters were believable even if the plot got a bit carried away with itself at times. It was an enjoyable enough book, but not so much so that I'll be rushing out to buy her next one.

Incidentally, I wanted to give this three and a half stars as I feel a bit mean giving it just three, but in my opinion it's not quite good enough for four!

Details - Paperback: 544 pages, Publisher: Black Swan (16 Dec 2006)

Summary: Decent enough thriller from Kate Atkinson