Meandering with a mazy motion

Kate Atkinson’s previous novel, Case Histories, was a successful experiment in crime fiction. One Good Turn is its sequel. In the first book, which was set in Cambridge, Brodie Jackson was a standard-issue private eye — ex-army, ex-police, with a broken marriage and a penchant for country music. Now, thanks to a £2 million inheritance from a grateful client, he’s an ex-private eye with a house in France and a swimming pool. Another legacy from Case Histories is his lover Julia, an actress in the Nell Gwyn mould, both physically and emotionally.

Brodie and Julia are in Edinburgh, where Julia has a role in a doomed Fringe production, largely funded by Brodie. The plot kicks off with a road rage incident in the middle of city witnessed by most of the main characters and some of the minor ones, many of whom are queuing for a lunchtime performance by a comedian whom no one finds funny.