KATE ATKINSON One Good Turn ***(*)

Rachel really enjoyed this - she'd give it four stars. John was slightly less enthusiastic.

It's a sort of sequel to Case Histories, in that two of the characters reappear. It all starts with a road rage incident in Edinburgh during the festival and then develops like a very dark farce, with people being bumped off all over the place.

We get to know quite a dauntingly large cast of characters (you have to work hard to keep track of who's who) whose stories fit together like Russian dolls, which is one of the central motifs of the book.

It's witty and fast-moving (I was reminded of Christopher Brookmyre's crime novels) but I prefer the more whimsical style of her earlier books, which seemed to have greater depth to them.