One Good Turn (Audible Audio Edition) Kate Atkinson Steven Crossley Random House Audiobooks Books
Download As PDF : One Good Turn (Audible Audio Edition) Kate Atkinson Steven Crossley Random House Audiobooks Books
It is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident--an incident 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 suspect.
With Case Histories, Kate Atkinson showed how brilliantly she could explore the crime genre and make it her own. In One Good Turn, she takes her masterful plotting one step further. Like a set of Russian dolls, each thread of the narrative reveals itself to be related to the last.
Her Dickensian cast of characters are all looking for love or money and find it in surprising places. As ever with Atkinson, what each one actually discovers is his or her true self.
Unpausable and triumphant, One Good Turn is a sharply intelligent listen that is also percipient, funny, and totally satisfying.
One Good Turn (Audible Audio Edition) Kate Atkinson Steven Crossley Random House Audiobooks Books
I have just finished this novel and thought it was a lovely gem of storytelling, complex and rich in plot and character. Some reader/reviewers here have complained about the coincidences in the book, saying they were unlikely and implausible. I disagree and think that life is, indeed, full of such coincidences and strange occurrences and associations; the "six degrees of separation" is one popular example. There are coincidences in this book but they do not seem false or contrived; they just seem to make for a puzzle, a maze, complexity that is similar to "real life." It is a novel, however, and not a "true crime" or non-fiction work; the author has license and liberty to tell a story and reveal characters, and Atkinson does both with great skill and talent. I loved the characters for their rich lives of delicate fragility and tough complexity. Like many - and unlike the author, as one learns in the interview that is printed in the back of the paperback copy that she did with Nancy Pearl - I like Jackson Brodie, but I really liked the character, Reggie Chase - a sixteen year old girl, an orphan and a tough, delicate "lost soul" who reminded me of some of my favorite characters in favorite novels (Scout, Frankie Adams, et al.) Louise Monroe, is an interesting character, but a very annoying one, to me anyway, and I was troubled by the way she treated her husband - and yet it's her character and I'm just there to read and fall into the story. This is top-notch writing, a very engaging and interesting story, and a complex mystery, in that order. The writing is lovely and more sophisticated than most "mysteries", although this novel is more than an example of that genre. Great enjoyable fall into great story and characters. I would give it as a gift and read it again - there's some praise.Product details
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One Good Turn (Audible Audio Edition) Kate Atkinson Steven Crossley Random House Audiobooks Books Reviews
Several years ago when I worked in the entertainment industry, I learned never to trust one of those tag lines that you see on the cover of a book. I’m referring to something like
“An awesome read! I couldn’t put it down!” - John Grisham
Usually you see this on books by authors who aren’t household names. I discovered that 99% of these were fake. I had authors tell me themselves that they never read these books that were hyped with their name splattered over the front cover. It was all a publishing ploy to sell more books.
Well, this book was a bit different. This author (who has only been widely known in some circles for only the last couple of years) was highly touted by none other than Stephen King. King has even gone out of his way in several interviews to praise this author and much of her work. After reading this, my first book by her, I’m not surprised that Stephen King holds her in such high regard. She is amazing. Her prose is very similar to King’s. She has a way of hooking the reader in - regardless of the topic, and proceeds to be very clever and witty, and manages to emulate an occasional guffaw from the reader even the overall atmosphere of the book might be a bit gloomy.
In this case, it’s a lot more than a “bit” gloomy. This book is very gloomy (hence the title). Yet most of the ugliness has happened in these characters’ past as opposed to the present situation as we’re reading about them. This book focuses on four key individuals living somewhere in Scotland. Their lives may have crossed each others’ path in a small way, but as a reader, you’re unaware of this until well into the book. At first, it seems as though you’re reading four different stories rolled into one novel.
These people in these different stories have had pretty rough experiences during their lives. I couldn’t keep up with all of the bad stuff that happened to these pour souls - from kidnapping to cancer, deadbeat dads to delinquent kids. It’s all here. Yet Atkinson somehow keeps the mood lighter than one would expect and, more importantly, interesting enough to where you really can’t wait to find out what happens yet.
It’s a bit unnecessary to describe the actual plot of this book. Yes, we do eventually find out there is actually a plot, but it’s not the story in and of itself that’s done so well, but rather the dialog and the intricacies of the characters and how they all interact with one another (think of a Robert Altman movie such as “Nashville” or “Gosford Park”). I wouldn’t mind reading another book that features many of these same people featured in this book(I think one of them actually does appear in several pieces by the author), but she simply does a magnificent job at telling a tale, that I’m betting I would easily enjoy more, if not all of her works.
Although, as I mentioned, her style is very similar to Stephen Kings’, keep in mind that I’m referring to style of her actual prose. There are some things that King does that many (including me) find hard to stomach some time. Things such as his “disgusting” factor, and his belief that every person on the entire planet uses about 200 four-letter words in every five minute conversation. So, fortunately, things such as that are not present within these pages.
Happiness is discovering an awesome new author. Thank you, Ms. Atkinson, for your brilliant book.
Triple Combination Plot, Character Development, Writing. The first Kate Atkinson book I read was one I picked up haphazardly off a library shelf, because "Life After Life" (the one I was looking for) was missing. This turned out to be the third in the Jackson Brodie series, and I was hooked. Delighted to go back and read the first two later. "One Good Turn" is the second in the series, and like the others, the best thing about it for me is how Atkinson gets inside the heads of the characters, and seems to be portraying people we might well encounter ourselves. The writing is terrific (I personally enjoy the geography of Yorkshire). And the plots, though intricate, jumping back and forth in time, are paced in a way that it makes it hard to put down the book. A+ from me!
What a messy book! The author has captured the true messiness of human life that most of us experience ourselves in the situations of Jackson Brodie and five or six other main characters. Her expertise is that she manages to tie up all the messy loose ends in the climactic scene at the housing tycoon Hatter's palatial home. This complicated story, which combines whodunit mystery and fascinating character studies, uses plot twists and shockers. For better or worse, the story also contains nearly all the elements of a slapstick farce, wherein identity mistakes and glaring ignorance of facts lead to the aforementioned bloody but comical resolution scene at the Hatter residence. The satisfyingly complex action moves right along and keeps the reader pretty well riveted. The only irritant I noticed was the seemingly excessive obtuseness on the part of the police in their failure to connect the dots in their overlapping investigations. Of course, obtuseness is an essential part of any farce.
I have just finished this novel and thought it was a lovely gem of storytelling, complex and rich in plot and character. Some reader/reviewers here have complained about the coincidences in the book, saying they were unlikely and implausible. I disagree and think that life is, indeed, full of such coincidences and strange occurrences and associations; the "six degrees of separation" is one popular example. There are coincidences in this book but they do not seem false or contrived; they just seem to make for a puzzle, a maze, complexity that is similar to "real life." It is a novel, however, and not a "true crime" or non-fiction work; the author has license and liberty to tell a story and reveal characters, and Atkinson does both with great skill and talent. I loved the characters for their rich lives of delicate fragility and tough complexity. Like many - and unlike the author, as one learns in the interview that is printed in the back of the paperback copy that she did with Nancy Pearl - I like Jackson Brodie, but I really liked the character, Reggie Chase - a sixteen year old girl, an orphan and a tough, delicate "lost soul" who reminded me of some of my favorite characters in favorite novels (Scout, Frankie Adams, et al.) Louise Monroe, is an interesting character, but a very annoying one, to me anyway, and I was troubled by the way she treated her husband - and yet it's her character and I'm just there to read and fall into the story. This is top-notch writing, a very engaging and interesting story, and a complex mystery, in that order. The writing is lovely and more sophisticated than most "mysteries", although this novel is more than an example of that genre. Great enjoyable fall into great story and characters. I would give it as a gift and read it again - there's some praise.
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