One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

Chosen by Mikki Wild

The story Plot - It is the Summer, it is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunch-time show witness a road rage incident - a near homicidal attack, 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 murder suspect. As the body count mounts, each member of the teeming Dickensian cast’s story contains a kernel of the next, like a set of Russian Dolls. They are looking for love, or money or redemption, or escape, but what each actually discovers is their own true self. 

Readers found the writing style confusing and frustrating - separate stories that were meant to link up - a tenuous thread. 

Quotes: ‘Format confusing - like a puzzle coming together at the end’ - ‘Left hanging after each chapter - lost the plot’. 

Some found it amusing and questioned whether it was farce or serious. Some liked the characters and found the relationships between them interesting - others did not like them, nor the violence thorough out the plot, but loved the twist of the wife paying for the husband to be killed. 

One reader, read very little as they found it too hard to finish. 

On the whole, was thought not worthy of recommendation, but perhaps, warranted a second read. 

Review by Teresa Morgan