4.5 rounded up to 5 stars. The author has great insight into a variety of kinds of people, which makes all the characters more believable and relatable, and which then makes all the rest more engaging. The wrapping up at the end, where all the characters went after the main event, was the weakest part in my opinion, which was a bit unfortunate to end on that note, but it was very short compared to all the rest. There was quite a bit of humor, relatable inner dialogue and funny descriptions and things rather than jokes. I enjoyed it. ( )

Atkinson’s second book in the Jackson Brodie series continues to please. A few years have passed since we first saw him in the novel Case Histories, and this one takes place in Edinburgh, where he has accompanied Julia his girlfriend from the first novel because she is in a play during Edinborough‘s famous festival.
The plot begins with an episode of road rage when a man has to stop short to avoid hitting a jaywalker and promptly gets struck from behind by a lunatic in a blue Honda who proceeded to get out of his car with a baseball bat and beat the driver that he in fact hit. He is saved from possibly getting killed by a bystander who throws a briefcase at the thug, causing him to be distracted from continuing his assault. From that part on, we start to meet the other characters.Besides the two men involved in that incident, it turns out that Jackson Brody was a witness to the assault as well. The man who saved the driver turns out to be Martin Canning who is a crime fiction novelist. Other important characters include a corrupt real estate mogul named Graham Hatter, his wife Gloria, a Russian dominatrix and a female police detective named Louise, who becomes a person of interest to Jackson.
As always, the characters are great and the insights provided by the excellent writing of Atkinson make for a lot of humor, a fair amount of suspense, and a rewarding ending; that’s pretty much all you can ask for. By the end, all the loose ends have been tied up and you can see that Jackson will be returning to Edinburgh where I can only hope the next book takes place.

Lines

He had certainly never intended actually to become a teacher, certainly not a religious studies teacher, but somehow or other he found that at the age of twenty-two he had already gone full circle in his life and was teaching in a small fee-paying boarding school in the Lake District, full of boys who had failed the entrance exams of the better public schools and whose sole interests in life seemed to be rugby and masturbation.

Pam wasn’t what Gloria would have called a friend, just someone she had known for so long that she had given up trying to get rid of her.

They wore blindingly white shirts and handmade shoes, they had bad livers and untroubled consciences, but beneath their aging hides they were barbarians.

Martin believed that hell would be to endure forever a wet Sunday in his mother’s house—

Gloria often had the impression that her life was a series of rooms that she walked into when everyone else had just left.

They said love made you strong, but in Louise’s opinion it made you weak. It corkscrewed into your heart and you couldn’t get it out again, not without ripping your heart to pieces.

After he was born, the midwife said, “Boys wreck your house, girls wreck your head.” Archie seemed intent on doing both.

His face was raw with spots, his ham-skin looked as if it had been boiled.

she had a great behind, made greater by the tight skirt of the pink uniform. “Two hardboiled eggs in a handkerchief,”

maybe she just saw in him someone who had weathered the world and still had something left to give. “You can’t have it both ways,” one of her girlfriends said. “Tough and tender, men are like steaks, it’s one or the other.”

That detail alone sent Jackson’s brain spinning. Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds. Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world.

He had no idea how, but Tatiana seemed to know everything. He wondered—if you had sex with her, would she kill you afterward? He thought there was a possibility that it might just be worth it. ( )

One Good Turn - Jackson Brodie — Book 2
Written by Kate Atkinson
(Read by Steven Crossley)
First published August 1, 2006
Kate Atkinson is a popular author with the readers at Strathaven Library and she is often amongst the recommendations that I'm given by our lovely customers. (I can tell you that my to be read list is actually longer than my arm, no kidding!) So when I came across the first book in the Jackson Brodie series, Case Histories (2004), I was happy to give it a try.

I started reading, well, listening, to Case Histories.
I thought the book was a selection of short stories and at first it seemed quite random, the stories were all a bit, I don't know, low... However, the author pulled all the strands together and it turned out to be a super enjoyable book with great characters and a cracking plot.

I listened to another book by Atkinson and was delighted to find that one of the characters, Jackson Brodie, was in it again! (That was when I realised that this was actually book four in the Jackson Brodie series!) It didn't matter, I mean, you don't have to listen to the books in order to enjoy them but there's always going to be a timeline issue or two if you skip a book in a series.

So, I looked properly at the sequence and went back to listen to book two, One Good Turn. It didn't take long before I realised that I had listened to this book a few years ago! No matter, now that I knew a few of the characters, it felt like visiting with old pals, sort of, and I got settled in for the ride!

The story takes place in Edinburgh during the festival. There's a cleverly described road rage incident which introduces us to our main characters. The chief one is Jackson Brodie. He is an ex cop, ex army and an ex private investigator and he becomes a suspect of the investigation. There's a really horrible property developer, Graham Hatter and his long suffering wife, Gloria, a female cop Louise Munroe, Jackson's partner Julia who is a proper lovie and acting in a Fringe production, Terence, a violent headcase who cannot be reasoned with, Martin Canning the mild mannered author who seems to have lost his way a little, Russian woman of dubious repute and a jaded, Richard Mott the failing comic who seems to be a bit of a user where his 'friends' are concerned! That sets the scene!

I love the way that Atkinson brings her characters to life and you either love them or hate them. With each new chapter, you get such a good feel for them. As a reader, I wanted to know everything about them. I cared what happened to them and what was going to happen next. She writes exceptionally well from both a female and male point of view, which isn't always a given. The plot was just the right amount of twisty and turny to keep me entertained and even though I had my own ideas as to where it was all going and what was happening, I didn't guess right!! I liked the police procedural elements of the story and the main cop, Louise Munroe was interesting as she juggled her professional and personal lives.

The book had that lovely Scottish wry humour and the book was just interesting and engaging. I must say that ending was satisfying too and I was left wondering where it would go next - luckily there are more books in the series so I have plenty more to look forward to!

The reader of the audiobook was excellent. His accents were on point, especially Julia with her thespian drawl - you'll just have to use your imagination if you're reading the actual book!

All in all though, I found it to be an entertaining and absorbing list which I am very happy to recommend ( )

Jackson is in Edinburgh for the Festival because he is funding a dreadful play Julia is appearing in. Now he has inherited so much money he has some excuse for wandering around accidentally solving crimes. This is told from a variety of perspectives which all come together gradually. The ending was superb, although I did lose track of all the memory sticks/CDs of Martin's draft novel - did he forget about the one Sophia found? This was absurd in a good way, with Jackson repeatedly being found by the police standing over a body and saying ' this isn't what it looks like'.

Very enjoyable. ( )

When listening to the book, it is hard to keep the characters straight. ( )