| One Good Turn | 
 enlarge | Author: Kate Atkinson
Publisher: Black Swan
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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You Save: £7.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 2191
Media: Paperback
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0552772445
EAN: 9780552772440
ASIN: 0552772445
Publication Date: December 16, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Good Thing July 2, 2008
I have just finished this book after several attempts of starting it and the short verdict is - I liked it but I didn't love it. Hence four stars. The reason is that for me the benchmark of Kate Atkinson's writing was Emotionally Wierd which I loved because of it's very wierdness. This is more like Case Histories so if you liked that then you will very probably enjoy this.
The main characters are very vivid and although they aren't particularly lovely there are a few I found myself routing for. Martin, the wimpy writer, gets plagued by "Cosmic Justice", Louise, the tough police officer who loves her cat more than her mother and Jackson Brodie, ex-everything who gets the closest to solving the mystery. By far the best character is Gloria (the dodgy builder's wife) and the funniest moments are Gloria's deadpan opinions on anything from her horrible children to her cheating husband.
The story gets off to a pretty slow start. Once you get past the slightly tedious retelling of "the incident" from the point of view of the main characters it rolls through quite cleverly, linking up seeming unconnected people, places and events.
Be warned, by the end there are a lot of infuriating loose ends and unanswered questions - things we can only guess at. Mostly to do with Gloria and if I were to tell you why it would spoil the book, so I won't. But I finished reading the last page and I just thought "Huh? How and when did she do that?".
Other reviewers haven't liked the writing style but for me that was one of my favourite parts of this book. There were a fair few self mocking literary references. I'm not keen on this sort of thing but it made sense in the setting. But it's a difficult thing to get all those train-of-thought tangents packed in and still have a story you can make sense of. It was easy to read and for me that is "A Good Thing". I really can't be bothered with prose that makes you're brain hurt, or language you need a dictionary to understand.
Reading back through this reveiw I don't feel as though I've done justice to One Good Turn. I enjoyed it and would recommend it. In fact I will probably read it again.
 Had great fun reading it June 7, 2008
It starts incredibly fast... a driver in Edinburgh , an enigmatic man right from the beginning, someone whose name isn't what 's written on his identification papers, nearly dies when attacked by a brute driving a honda ,in a city collision... Ironically enough, he is saved by a writer whose laptop proves to be the perfect tool when he crashes it on the skull of the murderous wretch... The incident has been witnessed by many people... whose lives we are going to read about in the next 300 pages.
I found it frustrating at first not to find out more about the driving accident and the parts, those involved had to play.But then, reading more and more about all the witnesses I found myself caught in their life stories, always interesting, often comical, sometimes moving... And all those threads are cleverly woven until the finale reveals it all and you know who the injured driver was and why he was in Edinburgh in the first place. A very clever story, majestically told... an entertaining read that will keep you on tenterhooks.
 Awful characters saved by clever plot April 24, 2008
My feelings about this book are mixed. I almost gave up on it because despite being introduced to dozens of characters in the first 100 pages, I didn't care about a single one of them. Fortunately after that the plot began to take over and I thought the multi-layered 'Russian Doll' theme was very original and worked really well. So 5 stars for the plot and 1 star for the characters gives 3 stars over all.
 I don't get it! April 2, 2008
I read this and was left baffled by all its rave reviews, including those on its cover. I can't understand what all the fuss is about. It's a somewhat incredible story involving a selection of characters who are boring/cliched/unpleasant/all of the above. I didn't care two hoots about any of them! It's set in Edinburgh but there is little sense of place, so that doesn't help. I'm bemused by its 'literary' label, since here we have a writer who doesn't understand about the subjunctive tense and relies a great deal on telling rather than showing, especially at the start. Disappointing!
A Jolly Murder Mystery March 28, 2008
Is the subtitle of this latest enjoyable novel from Kate Atkinson. This is so much more than a crime novel and in my opinion it is wrong to see it as belonging to this genre.
The author is an expert at weaving complicated tales and `One Good Turn' is no exception. Taking place over just four days the action is fast and furious. At first I found it difficult to keep track of both the characters and the situations as they were introduced. The fairly large cast of characters and the incidents described initially appear to be unrelated but a gradual disclosure of information shows that they are all linked. Coincidence upon coincidence, incident upon incident which all seem to stack together like the Russian Stacking Dolls that keep appearing, along with the witty style of writing should keep you guessing.
To some readers it may seem that these coincidences are highly improbable! Let's remember though that this is a novel for our entertainment that sets out to amuse. I think very successfully.
The plots and twists along the way all come together in an ending that certainly took me by surprise!
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