Arthur and George v. One Good Turn
presented by
ROUND ONE
Arthur and George
v. One Good Turn
Judged by Kate Schlegel
TMN Managing Editor Kate Schlegel is a native of Columbus, Ohio, and a copy editor by training, though these days she works as an assistant news editor for the web site of the Wall Street Journal. She lives in the neighborhood sometimes known as Brooklyn’s best-kept secret—if you ask nicely, maybe she’ll tell you where exactly that is. Her current favorite author is Eudora Welty, though the last book she finished was Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
When I heard I’d drawn Arthur and George in my Tournament bracket, I was pretty excited—a friend had been urging me to read it for months. So I read it first, and as predicted, I liked it a lot. The journalist in me loved the facts in this retelling of the true story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work to clear a stranger of a crime. The detailed drawings of the two main characters—particularly in the first half—made the book a pleasure to read, and the tales of Sir Arthur’s odd fascination with the spirit world were a neat bonus.
But then I read One Good Turn. The backdrop is Edinburgh during a theater festival, when a fender-bender turns into a beating, a woman’s body washes up on a barren beach, and a supposedly faithful husband has a heart attack while pleasuring his mistress. A dozen or so main characters roam around the city, getting into fights, falling in love, and trying to solve the crime. This was a real mystery.
In Arthur and George, it was clear from the beginning that the mystery would be solved and that the solution wasn’t the sort that could be sussed out by a careful reader. That takes away much of the fun. The weakness is especially apparent in the final third of the book, when the plot seems to slow down and the story disintegrates into a legal tug of war over the fate of George Edalji. It wouldn’t have been so dry had Sir Arthur’s skills been more in doubt; the knowledge that eventually he would tap the correct villain and clear Mr. Edalji’s name took away some of my interest as I neared the end.
Conversely, One Good Turn has a slow start—it’s never completely obvious which of the many characters is the main crime-solver—but the twists and turns of the final chapters (indeed, the final lines) kept me up late, anxious to read just one more chapter rather than go to bed and leave the mystery unsolved. And when I was finished, I was pleased to be able to say that I’d had my suspicions about the character eventually pegged for the crime. Early on I’d thought, Now, that person is acting pretty funny for the circumstances. It is possible for a careful reader to solve the crime in this book, and for this sleuth, that makes a big difference.
If paired with a comparable historical rival, Arthur and George would likely have come away the winner. But in a mystery-to-mystery face-off, One Good Turn takes the prize. Arthur and George tells a good story, but One Good Turn is the type of suspenseful tale Sherlock Holmes would love.
Advancing:
One Good Turn
Match Commentary
with Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner
WARNER: One Good Turn is a sequel to Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories, which to my mind puts her at a distinct disadvantage in this face-off, given that with rare exceptions (Godfather II, AfterMASH), sequels are rarely as satisfying as the original. One Good Turn is more T2: Judgment Day than American Pie: Band Camp on the quality scale, but it’s still not as good as Case Histories because Case Histories gets to introduce us to Jackson Brodie (the moral and investigative center of both books), who is going to become one of the enduring characters of our culture, kind of like Stiffler’s mom.
GUILFOILE: I enjoyed Case Histories as well. Nevertheless, Arthur and George was my only horse in this race, as it’s the only book in this year’s tourney I’ve managed to read so far. And I liked it a lot. So, grrrr.
I discovered Barnes because almost 20 years ago I came to love Martin Amis. In college and the years just after, I tore through London Fields and Money and Success and Dead Babies and Time’s Arrow, and I just couldn’t imagine a better writer. As a 21-year-old aspiring novelist, reading London Fields was simultaneously one of the most exhilarating and dispiriting reading experiences I’ve ever had. I remember thinking, “This is awesome,” and also, “I could never do this.”
So I started reading Barnes because I heard he was a friend of Amis’s (or he was at the time). There really couldn’t be a more idiotic reason to pick up a book—it would be like reading Wilmer Valderrama’s novels because you so enjoyed Ashton Kutcher’s—but I sort of dug Barnes and kept picking him up. Over the last 10 years, though, Amis has disappointed me over and over (The Information was the last one I liked at all) and I think Barnes has just been consistently good, book after book after book, and every one different from the last. Maybe none of them are as good as London Fields, in my mind, but great nonetheless—Arthur and George included.
WARNER: Sorry, buddy, Arthur and George’s was a deli near my high school where we’d go for off-campus lunch junior and senior year. The tuna salad gave me salmonella once.
This one is a mismatch for Atkinson.