On a beautiful summer day, crowds lined up outside a theater witness a sudden act of extreme road rage: a tap on a fender triggers a nearly homicidal attack. Jackson Brodie, ex-cop, ex-private detective, new millionaire, is among the bystanders.The event thrusts Jackson into the orbit of the wife of an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, a washed-up comedian, a successful crime novelist, a mysterious Russian woman, and a female police detective. Each of them hiding a secret, each looking for love or money or redemption or escape, they all play a role in driving Jackson out of retirement and into the middle of several mysteries that intersect in one sinister scheme.Kate Atkinson "writes such fluid, sparkling prose that an ingenious plot almost seems too much to ask, but we get it anyway," writes Laura Miller for Salon. With a keen eye for the excesses of modern life, a warm understanding of the frailties of the human heart, and a genius for plots that turn and twist, Atkinson has written a novel that delights and surprises from the first page to the last. Kate Atkinson began her career with a winner: Behind the Scenes at the Museum , which captured the Whitbread First Novel Award. She followed that success with four other books, the last of which was Case Histories , her first foray into the mystery-suspense-detective genre. In that book she introduced detective Jackson Brodie, who reopened three cold cases and ended up a millionaire. A great deal happened in-between. In One Good Turn Jackson returns, following his girlfriend, Julia the actress, to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. He manages to fall into all kinds of trouble, starting with witnessing a brutal attack by "Honda Man" on another man stuck in a traffic jam. Is this road rage or something truly sinister? Another witness is Martin Canning, better known as Alex Blake, the writer. Martin is a shy, withdrawn, timid sort who, in a moment of unlikely action, flings a satchel at the attacker and spins him around, away from his victim. Gloria Hatter, wife of Graham, a millionaire property developer who is about to have all his secrets uncovered, is standing in a nearby queue with a friend when the attack takes place. There is nastiness afoot, and everyone is involved. Nothing is coincidental. Through a labyrinthine plot which is hard to follow because the points of view are constantly changing, the real story is played out, complete with Russians, false and mistaken identities, dead bodies, betrayals, and all manner of violent encounters. Jackson gets pulled in to the investigation by Louise Monroe, a police detective and mother of an errant 14-year-old. There might be yet another novel to follow which will take up the connection those two forge in this book. Or, Jackson might just go back to France and feed apples to the local livestock. Atkinson has written an enjoyable and lively story of no degrees of separation among the most unlikely cast of characters. Some plot lines have been left to drift, but it does hang together in a satisfying fashion. --Valerie Ryan The second installment of the author's Jackson Brodie detective series is a complex jigsaw: when the driver of a rented Peugeot collides with a bat-wielding thug in a Honda Civic during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the outcome is seen through the eyes of numerous characters, including the whey-faced writer of cozy mysteries who comes to the driver's aid, the sardonic wife of a crooked real-estate developer, and Brodie himself, now retired and disgruntled about getting involved. The first Brodie book, "Case Histories," was propelled by a nuanced, psychological portrait of loss; here Atkinson's authoritative voice emerges only sporadically, and abrupt changes of scene disrupt the flow. Still, some of the characters, such as a snappy, overwhelmed single mother and cop, are finely rendered. Copyright © 2006 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker Despite generally good reviews, what's wrong with One Good Turn is that it can't live up to its predecessor, Case Histories , in power or complexity. Here, the suspense lags and the resolutions feel somewhat forced: the very talented Kate Atkinson is certainly not stretching herself. But even if Atkinson's novel is "disposable" entertainment, readers will be glad to have the delightfully surly detective back in action. The novel's crackling one-liners, perceptive character studies, and amusing twists all helpbut One Good Turn is mainly for ardent fans of Detective Brodie. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. The literary novelist who caused a stir with her crossover into the mystery genre, Case Histories (2004), here offers an intricately plotted and quite amusing sequel. Jackson Brodie, a PI who inherited $1 million from a former client, is two years into retirement in the French countryside. Traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland, for an arts festival with his actress girlfriend, Julia, also a former client, Jackson is feelin