One Good Turn

Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police is in Edinburgh when he witnesses an assault.  Further damage is prevented by a citizen throwing a backpack at the attacker.  Brodie helps the owner of the backpack, while the perpetrator escapes and the police help the victim, now identified as Paul Bradley.  He is the only one who gets the registration number of the attacker’s car, but Brodie quietly escapes before he is questioned by the police.

Martin Canning, the man who had thrown his backpack accompanied Paul Bradley, to the hospital as he was somewhat giddy from what he had done.  He finds himself in the unenviable position of being regarded as the next-of-kin to the victim.

Gloria Hatter has been called to the hospital.  Her husband had suffered a serious heart attack while with a call girl.  She gets to speak with the woman, who was a Russian and had accompanied her husband to the hospital.  She was surprised to find out what her husband had been doing.

Later, Brodie discovers the body of a woman as the tide is coming in, unfortunately, he is unable to rescue it.  When DI Louise Monroe speaks to him, he wishes that he was the one heading up the investigation.

Author Kate Atkinson takes the threads of each of the above stories and begins to braid them into a single story.  Although the reader, at the beginning, wonders where the stories are leading, Atkinson presents a very good thriller that has a number of surprises at the end.  Well worth the read.