Reading this book was a chore. I found myself wanting to do just about anything else rather than pick it up again, which meant the going was slow and seemingly endless. There's so much filler junk that I didn't even realise I was reading a series sequel. The story is packed with so many POV characters that I often checked earlier chapters just to remind myself who was narrating and why I should care. Not that it's usually difficult to get to grips with multiple perspectives but simply because every character is having some free form inner dialogue that is a slog to constantly follow.

This train of thought nattering makes my head ache. I have a hard enough time with my own rambling thoughts without the addition of fictional ones to contend with. Every thought a character has is immediately and maddeningly followed by some sort of side tangent. The author has a tendency, via hyphens, parentheses or just plain commas to waffle on and on. It can feel a little bit like being forced to listen to a boring neighbour, you just want to be getting on, thanks.

One Good Turn is the second in the Jackson Brodie series and it is very enjoyable - at least as good as the first, Case Studies.

This time, Brodie is in Edinburgh as his sort-of-partner Julia is in a dire production at the Fringe. In a slightly bonkers plot, he is a witness to an assault and then becomes involved in a series of slightly bizarre and sometimes violent incidents as a story of corruption, exploitation and ultimately murder evolves. It’s a great read, with some very sharp barbs aimed at the excesses of crooked property developers and others, some genuinely funny moments and a rather gripping, well structured plot.

One of the book’s chief pleasures is Kate Atkinson’s wonderful character portraits (Case Studies, in other words) with her exceptional eye and ear for people’s actions, speech and internal monologues. The shy, repressed but successful author, the ageing wife of the corrupt, unfaithful businessman and others, plus Jackson himself and the police officer with whom he becomes involved – possibly in more ways than one – are all superbly painted and the whole thing is a pleasure to read.

This is an exceptionally good series, I think, and I can recommend this instalment very warmly.

(My thanks to Random House for an ARC via NetGalley.)