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One Good Turn
Kate Atkinson, 2006
Little, Brown & Company
448 pp.

In Brief
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: the wife of an unscrupulous property developer, a crime writer, a washed-up comedian. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander — until he becomes a murder suspect.

Stephen King called Case Histories the best mystery of the decade: One Good Turn sees the return of its irresistible hero Jackson Brodie. As the body count mounts, each character's story contains a kernel of the next, like a set of nesting Russian dolls. Everyone in the teeming Dickensian cast is looking for love or money or redemption or escape: but what each actually discovers is their own true self. (From the publisher.)

This is the second in the Jackson Brodie series, following Case Histories. The third in the series is When Will There Be Good News.

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About the Author

• Birth—1951
• Where—York, England, UK
• Education—M.A., Dundee University
• Awards—Whitbread Award
• Currently—Edinburgh, Scotland, UK


Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named Whitbread Book of the Year in the U.K. in 1995, and was followed by Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Not the End of the World, Case Histories and One Good Turn. (From the publisher.)

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Atkinson was born in York in 1951 and studied English Literature at Dundee University, gaining her Masters Degree in 1974. During her final year of this course, she was married for the first time, although the marriage lasted only two years. She subsequently studied for a doctorate in American Literature which she failed at the viva stage. After leaving university, she took on a variety of miscellaneous jobs from home help to legal secretary and teacher. She lived in Whitby, Yorkshire for a time, before moving to Edinburgh, where she taught at Dundee University and began writing short stories.

She initially wrote for women's magazines after winning the 1986 Woman's Own Short Story Competition. She was runner-up for the Bridport Short Story Prize in 1990 and won an Ian St James Award in 1993 for her short-story Karmic Mothers, which she later adapted for BBC2 television as part of its Tartan Shorts series.

Atkinson's breakthrough was with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, ahead of works by Salman Rushdie and Roy Jenkins. The book has been adapted for radio, theatre and television. She has since written several more novels, short stories and a play. Her latest two novels, Case Histories and its sequel One Good Turn, have heralded a return to form and success—described by Stephen King as "the best mystery of the decade."

Stylistically, Atkinson is a comic novelist whose style often juxtaposes mundane everyday life with fantastic magical events, a technique that contributes to her work's pervasive magic realism. (From the author's website.)

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Critics Say. . .
In the past Ms. Atkinson has played the minor time trick of letting events almost converge and then replaying them from slightly different points of view. She does that here to the same smart, unnerving effect. And she frequently brings up the image of Russian dolls, each hidden inside another, to illustrate how her storytelling tactics work. By the apt ending of One Good Turn a whole series of these dolls has been opened. In the process the book has borne out one of Jackson’s favorite maxims: "A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


The suspense ratchets up quickly and palpably, as surely as when the doctor experiments with different settings for your new pacemaker. . . . One Good Turn is full of a zippy satire that provides a smooth skating surface for the reader to whiz through. This is clean, purposeful prose that drives the plot, wickedly funny in places, sometimes quietly insightful and fairly faithful to the traditional mystery form. Atkinson’s novel is like something her detective might drink in the wee hours after knocking around the docks, something straight up with a twist.
Globe and Mail (Canada)


The second installment of the author's Jackson Brodie detective series is a complex jigsaw: when the driver of a rented Peugeot collides with a bat-wielding thug in a Honda Civic during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the outcome is seen through the eyes of numerous characters, including the whey-faced writer of cozy mysteries who comes to the driver's aid, the sardonic wife of a crooked real-estate developer, and Brodie himself, now retired and disgruntled about getting involved. The first Brodie book, "Case Histories," was propelled by a nuanced, psychological portrait of loss; here Atkinson's authoritative voice emerges only sporadically, and abrupt changes of scene disrupt the flow. Still, some of the characters, such as a snappy, overwhelmed single mother and cop, are finely rendered.
The New Yorker


Having won a wide following for her first crime novel (and fifth book), Case Histories (2004), Atkinson sends Det. Jackson Brodie to Edinburgh while girlfriend Julia performs in a Fringe Festival play. When incognito thug "Paul Bradley" is rear-ended by a Honda driver who gets out and bashes Bradley unconscious with a baseball bat, the now-retired Jackson is a reluctant witness. Other bystanders include crime novelist Martin Canning, a valiant milquetoast who saves Bradley's life, and tart-tongued Gloria Hatter, who's plotting to end her 39-year marriage to a shady real estate developer. Jackson walks away from the incident, but keeps running into trouble, including a corpse, the Honda man and sexy, tight-lipped inspector Louise Monroe. Everyone's burdened by a secret-infidelity, unprofessional behavior, murder-adding depth and many diversions. After Martin misses a visit from the Honda man (Martin's wonderfully annoying houseguest isn't so lucky), he enlists Jackson as a bodyguard, pulling the characters into closer orbit before they collide on Gloria Hatter's lawn. Along the way, pieces of plot fall through the cracks between repeatedly shifting points of view, and the final cataclysm feels forced. But crackling one-liners, spot-on set pieces and full-blooded cameos help make this another absorbing character study from the versatile, effervescent Atkinson.
Publishers Weekly


Whitbread Award winner Atkinson puts a thoroughly enjoyable spin on this character-driven detective novel, the follow-up to Case Histories. After receiving a surprise bequest, quitting his job, and moving to a French village, former detective Jackson Brodie is torn between wanting to live a quiet, idyllic life and feeling purposeless. He's visiting Edinburgh with his self-involved, increasingly distant lover, Julia, who's acting in a minor play in an arts festival. At loose ends, Brodie witnesses a road-rage incident that sets off a dazzling chain of coincidences involving a hired assassin, a meek historical mystery writer, an obnoxious stand-up comedian, Russian prostitutes, and a loathsome real estate developer and his stoic, long-suffering wife. Atkinson skillfully links the characters to one another, revealing twists from their various points of view, and in Brodie creates a likable star. Once involved in the case, he reverts to a pleasingly take-charge, strong-but-silent type who will leave readers eagerly awaiting his next outing. Highly recommended. —Christine Perkins, Burlington P.L., WA
Library Journal


The literary novelist who caused a stir with her crossover into the mystery genre, Case Histories (2004), here offers an intricately plotted and quite amusing sequel. Jackson Brodie, a PI who inherited $1 million from a former client, is two years into retirement in the French countryside. Traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland, for an arts festival with his actress girlfriend, Julia, also a former client, Jackson is feeling somewhat "unmanned" by his formless days, which he spends filling up his iPod with sad country songs and feeding apples to French donkeys. Then he happens on a case of road rage. As the witnesses, including a timid mystery author, are subsequently menaced by various and sundry thugs, Jackson traces the incidents back to the unsavory business dealings of a real-estate developer. Atkinson has a lot of fun playing against type, portraying writers and actors as leading small, unimaginative lives while revealing the hidden depths in an unassuming, longtime housewife. Although it's not as wonderful as its predecessor, this still makes for delightfully witty reading. Joanne Wilkinson
Booklist


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 neatresolutions, 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

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Book Club Discussion Questions

1. Kate Atkinson has said that Gloria "is the moral center of the book." Did you find this to be true? Do you think that a novel with so many irreverent characters requires a moral center?

2. During Gloria's discussion with Tatiana she realizes, "It was strange how something you weren't expecting could, nonetheless, turn out to be no surprise at all" (page 78). To what extent are the characters in One Good Turn expecting the predicaments that befall them?

3. Atkinson writes, "Once, the eye of God watched people, now it was the camera lens" (page 28). How does technology figure into Jackson's investigation? How does the "camera" compete with religion as a deterrent from illegal behavior?

4. Early on, Martin Canning, an innocent bystander, successfully stops the road-rage assault only to become the assailant's next target. Do you agree with Martin's decision? Would you do the same if you were in his position?

5. At the beginning of One Good Turn, we meet a changed Jackson Brodie—instead of working as a private detective in England, as he did in Case Histories, he lives in France as a retired millionaire and is dating Julia. How does this sea change affect Jackson's outlook? What about him would you like to change in Kate Atkinson's next novel?

6. While Jackson and Julia first appeared in Case Histories, Atkinson introduces several new characters in One Good Turn. Which new character did you enjoy the most?

7. Discuss the novel's title. Do you think the adage from which it is derived influences the characters' behavior?

8. Jackson is described as a man who "had money and behaved as if he hadn't," while Julia "never had any money, yet she always behaved as if she had" (page 36). Do all the characters share this complicated relationship with money? How does greed affect their actions?

9. One Good Turn is set during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the largest arts festivals in the world. How does this unique setting serve as a backdrop for the events that transpire?

10. Several unexpected friendships are forged during the novel—Jackson and Martin, Gloria and Tatiana. How important are these new friendships to the story? Are there two characters in One Good Turn who did not meet and whom you hoped would cross paths?
(Questions issued by publisher.)