One Good Turn
2006 • 400 pages

Ratings25

Average rating3.8

15

Case Histories, once again featuring ex-cop turned private investigator Jackson Brodie. It is summer, it is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident – an incident 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 suspect. With Case Histories, Kate Atkinson showed how brilliantly she could explore the crime genre and make it her own. In One Good Turn she takes her masterful plotting one step further. Like a set of Russian dolls each thread of the narrative reveals itself to be related to the last. Her Dickensian cast of characters are all looking for love or money and find it in surprising places. As ever with Atkinson what each one actually discovers is their true self. Unputdownable and triumphant, One Good Turn is a sharply intelligent read that is also percipient, funny, and totally satisfying.

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Series

Featured Series

6 primary books

#2 in Jackson Brodie

Jackson Brodie is a 6-book series with 6 primary works first released in 2004 with contributions by Kate Atkinson.

#1
Case Histories
#2
One Good Turn
#3
When Will There Be Good News?
#4
Started Early, Took My Dog
#5
Big Sky
#6
Death at the Sign of the Rook

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Her writing is a pleasure to read. If you like the genre she is a must read

I love Edinburgh and the return of Jackson Brodie pulled me in. I enjoyed the Dickensian way it ‘all comes together in the end', however Case Histories remains my favourite Atkinson novel thus far.


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