557. One Good Turn
Rating: ☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Kate Atkinson
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Foreign, Crime
418 pages, published September 10, 2007
Reading Format: Audiobook on Overdrive
Summary
One Good Turn takes place during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland when a near-homicidal attack occurs 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.
Quotes
“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.”
“Love was the hardest thing. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”
“Julia’s vocabulary was “chock-full” of strangely archaic words – “spiffing,” “crumbs,” “jeepers” – that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls’ annual rather than in Julia’s own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.”
“You said five little words to someone–How can I help you?–and it was as if you’d mortgaged your soul out to them.”
“The Grim Reaper, Gloria corrected herself – if anyone deserved capital letters it was surely Death. Gloria would rather like to be the Grim Reaper. She wouldn’t necessarily be grim, she suspected she would be quite cheerful (Come along now, don’t make such a fuss).”
“Gloria regretted that she wasn’t a knitter, she could be producing a useful garment while waiting for Graham to die.”
“Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds. Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world.”
“One of the things Jackson liked about Julia was her independence, one of the things he didn’t like about Julia was her independence.”
“Sometimes you wondered why anyone bothered crawling out of the cradle when what lay ahead was so darn difficult.”
“No one ever warned you about how ferocious mother love could be, let’s face it, no one warned you about anything.”
My Take
While I’m a fan of some of Kate Atkinson’s books (Life After Life and A God in Ruins), other ones that I have read (Transcription and Behind the Scenes at the Museum) are a bit clunky. You can put One Good Turn in the clunky category. Actually, it is the most clunky Atkinson. In this case, One Good Turn does not deserve another. Skip.
