One Good Turn

Book No: 17
Title: One Good Turn
Author: Kate Atkinson
Genre: Mystery
Completed: 4/18/09
No. of Pages: 418
Rating: 4/5*****

Jackson Brodie, the world weary detective from Case Histories is back in this follow up novel.

Now retired from police/detective work, Brodie is in Edinburgh with his girlfriend Julia, an aspiring actress. While exiting the theatre where Julia is rehearsing, Brodie is witness to an act of road rage that leaves a man badly injured. Other witnesses include mild mannered author Martin Canning and suburban housewife Gloria Hatter. All three will become linked through a series of events and crimes, revealed layer by layer in a web of lies, secrets, betrayals and more than one murder.

As in her previous novel, Atkinson links together several individual stories, culminating in one final confrontation when all the connections are revealed, including a closing unexpected revelation with the very last sentence.

There is a lot going on in this book and at times it can be hard to follow all the plot lines, but the characterizations are great and the pieces of the puzzle fit so snugly together it makes for a very enjoyable and literary mystery.