Review: ONE GOOD TURN, Kate Atkinson

Just a note here to say that I have re-read Kate Atkinson's ONE GOOD TURN, forgetting that I had read it 15 years ago. My original review is here and I am pleased to see that I basically concurred with it.

This was the second in the Jackson Brodie series and made good reading even the second time around. Since then I have read others:

ONE GOOD TURN
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
4.6, STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG-audio
LIFE AFTER LIFE
4.5, TRANSCRIPTION  

ONE GOOD TURN is set in the Fringe of the Edinburgh Festival, and it was interesting to see  that the Fringe of the Adelaide Festival shares many elements of it, although perhaps not road rage incidents leading to murder.

Review: TRANSCRIPTION, Kate Atkinson

• this edition published by Little, Brown and Company (large print) 2018
• ISBN 978-0-316-45331-8
• 445 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

'Think of it as an adventure, Perry had said right at the beginning of all this.And it had seemed like one. A bit of a lark, she had thought. A Girls' Own adventure.'

In 1940, 18-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realise that there is no action without consequence.

Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of this country's most exceptional writers.

My Take

It is fascinating how many books recently published relate to World War II and are set at the start of the war.

This novel really has 3 points in time: 1940, 1950 and 1981. I will leave you to discover for yourself how those dates fit in, but it is most written from the point of view of 1950, after the War when Juliet is employed by the BBC and thinks she sees someone from her MI5 past, someone she thought she knew well, but he tells her she is mistaken.

In 1940 Juliet thinks her job of transcribing conversations from recordings is pretty boring and lacking in importance. However she does at times act in an undercover role, sometimes as a decoy, and while some of her colleagues know what is going on, Juliet seems blissfully ignorant. Nasty things happen in 1940 but then that period passes and then the war ends. After the war Juliet passes from MI5 to work st the BBC but occasionally MI5 ask favours of her.

There is a touch of "Red Joan" about this story.
Very readable, if at times a little confusing.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
ONE GOOD TURN
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
4.6, STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG-audio
LIFE AFTER LIFE 

Review: LIFE AFTER LIFE, Kate Atkinson

• format Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 2183 KB
• Print Length: 545 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0316176486
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (March 14, 2013)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00AQIFNGM

Synopsis (Amazon)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S (ORANGE) PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, April 2013.

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third  chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

My Take

LIFE AFTER LIFE is a fascinating novel, almost like a "choose your own adventure" for adults, except the reader does not get to choose what happens to Ursula Todd.

In a number of vignettes, some of which are very short and come to an abrupt end, the author explores the possible lives of Ursula Todd. Many of them hinge on a single choice, once taken impossible to reverse. The choice is often not Ursula's own, but sometimes it is. We've also had that feeling - "if only I'd done that" or "what if I'd done this" - the choice once taken leads down a very different path. 

This is a philosophical question sometimes tackled by historians - what if Germany had won the Great War; what if someone had stopped Hitler at the beginning, and so on. Would history tell the same story?

What Atkinson does is play with questions like these on a more minor level, at the level of e individual person - would the person be happier, would life have been better?

I'm not sure we would know if/when we had "finally got it right". The scenarios played out in LIFE AFTER LIFE seem to say we wouldn't. 

The vignettes are set against life in England and parts of Europe during the Great War, World War II, and later. History marches on seemingly despite what happens to individuals and nations. 

Other interesting philosophical ideas are discussed. Ursula experiences déjà vu, as do most of us at some time. Does that mean she has experienced other lives? Have we been here before?

My first non-crime fiction novel for the year.

A very good read.

My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed
ONE GOOD TURN
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
4.6, STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG-audio

Review - STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, Kate Atkinson - audio

Product Details

ISBN: 9781846572814
Format:Audio
Imprint: Audio RH UK
Published: 01/09/10

Source: loan from a friend
Warning: What I listened to was an abridged version, approx 6 hours, on 5 CDs, but I think there may also be an unabridged one.
Narrator:  Jason Isaacs

Publisher's blurb
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.

Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.

My take:
I feel a little guilty at having listened to an abridged version, but you know what they say about looking a gift horse in the mouth. My guilt stems particularly from the fact that I have an unabridged version on my Kindle.

I always wonder what the "abridgers" cut out in these versions, what have I missed out on?

However, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG.
I must admit I have come away without any idea what the title actually means (perhaps that was in a bit that was abridged).

The publisher's promo says

Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains.

This plot dovetailing takes the reader down paths that you just don't expect, leaving you second-guessing from sketchy clues. STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG spans from the mid 1970s when Tracy Waterhouse was just a WPC to the present day when she has just retired as a Superintendent and has taken a job supervising security in a shopping centre. Something that happens in the 70s reaches out and climbs into the 21st century with devastating results.

My rating: 4.6

This is #4 in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series:
Jackson Brodie
1. Case Histories (2004)
2. One Good Turn (2006)
3. When Will There Be Good News (2008)
4. Started Early, Took My Dog (2010)

It reminded me that I still haven't read CASE HISTORIES, although somewhere I do have a copy.

My other reviews, both rated at 4.8:
ONE GOOD TURN
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?

Review: ONE GOOD TURN, Kate Atkinson

Random House Australia, Transworld Publishers, September 2006, ISBN 9780552772440

This review is one of a number that I am re-publishing as they were originally published elsewhere, not on this blog.

When Paul Bradley brakes suddenly to avoid hitting a pedestrian he becomes the victim of road rage. The driver of the Honda behind him takes to Paul's car with a baseball bat, and then starts on Paul himself. Paul is saved by Martin Canning who throws his computer bag and hits the Honda driver in the head.

Among those who saw the incident is Jackson Brodie, retired police officer, in Edinburgh with his current girl friend for the Festival of Arts. Jackson decides that he does not want to get involved and leaves the scene without making a report, although he gives Martin his phone number. Martin however is not so lucky. His good deed leads him to wait in hospital for Paul to be released, and then he agrees to stay overnight with him to make sure he is all right.

In this cleverly woven web of violence and deceit, author Kate Atkinson draws together a number of those who witnessed the road rage incident. Even at the height of the Festival, and packed with tourists, Edinburgh can become a very small town indeed. We haven't seen the last of the Honda driver, nor of Jackson Brodie, nor even of Gloria and Pam who were among the bystanders. So finely are the threads between them drawn, that it comes as a surprise on the last page to discover how little actual time has passed. We have learned a lot about their lives, witnessed a couple of murders, and solved a few mysteries on the way. And right at the end, on the very last page, comes a twist that few readers will forsee.

ONE GOOD TURN is subtitled A Jolly Murder Mystery, and author Kate Atkinson certainly doesn't allow mystery, violence, and murder get in the way of a fine sense of humour. Several times I found myself smiling at a clever turn of phrase, and sometimes at the situations the characters have found themselves in.

Kate Atkinson introduced Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, and ex-private detective, in her bestseller CASE HISTORIES. With that novel she won the Saltire Book of the Year Award, and the Prix Westminster. In ONE GOOD TURN Jackson Brodie is almost an anti-hero, a bit of a rolling stone, but one that would like very much to be gathering some moss. I look forward to the next in this series.

My rating: 4.8

October 2006 Review first published on Murder and Mayhem

Mini-review of CASE HISTORIES: my rating 5.0
1970s: A young toddler goes missing in a Cambridge summer heat wave.
1980s:A teenage girl is brutally murdered in her father's law office.
1980s: A struggling young mother can't abide her screaming baby anymore and in a temper takes an axe to her husband.
Three shocking vignettes. Three grim case histories that begin this compelling and beautiful novel from Kate Atkinson.
The way Atkinson brings all these three case histories together through threads from the present in the investigations of Jackson Brodie is excellent.

My review of the next in the series: WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? My rating 4.8

The Jackson Brodie series (list from Fantastic Fiction)
1. Case Histories (2004)
2. One Good Turn (2006)
3. When Will There Be Good News (2008)

Other novels
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995)
Human Croquet (1997)
Emotionally Weird (1999)

Weekly Geeks # 19: Top 10 books published in 2008

The challenge in Weekly Geeks #19 is to, before October 25,

1. Compile your list of favorites. Please be sure that books you choose actually were published in 2008, or at the very earliest in the winter holiday season of 2007. Sometimes books that come out then are left out.

2. Come back and sign Mr Linky with the url to your top books of 2008 post.

3. If you happen to see any non-WG bloggers making similar lists, please grab the url and come put it in Mr Linky for them. Let them know you’re doing that, please, in case they have some sort of objection; if they do, they can ask me to remove their link. I’ve already seen a couple favorites of 2008 posts, which is another reason I wanted to get started early.

4. Feel free to make changes to your list if you read something new in the next few weeks. After about October 25, I can’t guarantee your changes will be reflected in the master list. We’ll probably start compiling lists around then.

5. Please consider whether you’d like to help me compile lists.

If you follow my blog, then you'll know that creating such a list is no problem for me.
You can see my ranked list for all the books I have read in 2008 at Smik's Reviews (all my reviews)

Here are my top 10, chosen from books published in 2008

SHATTER, Michael Robotham
A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES, Reginald Hill
NEMESIS, Jo Nesbo
FAN MAIL, PD Martin
CARELESS IN RED, Elizabeth George
VOODOO DOLL, Leah Giarratano
WHERE WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, Kate Atkinson
A KILLING FROST, R.D. Wingfield
DEAD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS, Peter James
NO TIME FOR GOODBYE, Linwood Barclay

There don't seem to be all that many crime fiction readers amongst my fellow weekly geekers, so my choices probably won't poll all that well, unless fellow crime fiction bloggers decide to chime in. There are some Australian authors in my list too - Michael Robotham, PD Martin, and Leah Giarratano - and they probably won't poll particularly well overall either.

Also, in our genre we have so much choice, so the choices could be wide ranging rather than concentrated. Much will depend on people sticking to the published in 2008 rule. Of course what it doesn't take into account that some books are published in some countries earlier than in others. We often find that books published in Australia are not available in the UK or the US until later, or vice versa. There are always flaws in any rule.

Meanwhile, you've read my list. Are any of mine in your top 10? What crime fiction have I left out that you would put in your top 10? Please feel free to list your top 10 in your comment, but only those published in 2008. I might work up a "local" poll for us in a couple of weeks time.

Review: WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, Kate Atkinson

Random House Australia, 2008, 348 pages
ISBN 978-0-385-61451-1

Thirty years ago Andrew Decker killed Joanna Mason's mother, sister, dog and baby brother. Six year old Joanna escaped by running into the fields. And now Andrew Decker is to be released from gaol.

Reggie Chase is an orphan too. Her mother died recently while on holidays, an accidental drowning, not a murder. Reggie's life owes its stability to her own resilience, her part-time job as a nanny for Dr. Hunter's baby son, and to her friendship with her ex-teacher Ms. McDonald. The night of the big train derailment on the line behind Ms. McDonald's house is the night Dr. Hunter disappears. It's also the night Reggie Chase brings Jackson Brodie back from the dead.

Reggie is convinced that, whatever Dr. Hunter's husband says, she and the baby have been kidnapped. Life has made Reggie old beyond her years. She is remarkably resourceful and persistent.

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? isn't just a good read. It's a mystery, and an exploration of relationships. #3 in the series, it adds to the unfolding story of Jackson Brodie, and newly married Detective Chief Inspector Louise Munro. Despite serious story threads it is laced with humour in unexpected places, and with poignant sadness too.

Some of the scenarios are perhaps a little too coincidental, maybe testing the reader's sense of credibility. But who cares? This is fiction and an author whose writing holds our interest can do whatever she likes, can't she?

Kate Atkinson's love of the English language surfaces in the way she merges nursery rhymes into the text: "Reggie Chase, as small as a mouse, as quiet as a house with no one home." The description of the sound of the derailing of the train is vivid: ".. as if a giant hand was clawing a giant blackboard with giant fingernails and finally a tremendous bang like an explosive clap of thunder. The apocalypse had come to town." Kate Atkinson wants us to savour the words, roll them around like wine on the palate.

This is a book worth dwelling on. I hesitate to use the term literary thriller even though the blurb on the back cover does. Kate Atkinson, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year with her very first novel, is something of a "genre-jumper". But take your time with this book. There's more than one story to enjoy here. I look forward to Jackson Brodie #4, although, according to the author, it may be a long time in coming.

Kate Atkinson's site contains the first chapter of WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? as well as a video interview, where she talks about where her ideas come from and how her characters are created. There is also a video extract of Kate Atkinson reading from the book.

Her other books:

• Behind the Scenes at the Museum
• Human Croquet
• Emotionally Weird
• Not the End of the World

Other Jackson Brodie titles:

• Case Histories
• One Good Turn

My rating of WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? 4.8