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In Night Train, Martin Amis has fixed his sights on the American female--with a difference. Mike is in fact a woman--a hulking, chain-smoking, deep-voiced alcoholic who comes complete with a squalid family background and a none-too-happy foreground. She even lives in a building next to the proverbial night train and can't survive without her tape with eight different versions of the R & B "hymn to the low rent."
Did this novel begin as narrative flexing, yet another test the hypertalented author--and number-one Elmore Leonard fan--wanted to pose to himself? If so, he has passed with flying colors. True, Mike's search occasionally pushes her up against pulp pathos, but mostly the genre keeps Amis true. "Police are pretty blasé about ballistics. Remember the Kennedy assassination and 'the magic bullet'? We know that every bullet is a magic bullet. Particularly the .22 roundnose. When a bullet enters a human being, it has hysterics. As if it knows it shouldn't be there."
Mike spends her time weighing the evidence, wishing it would point to murder, and letting us in on some current police realities. Whatever television tells us, in real life (not to mention postmodern crime fiction), there's no neat solution. Even that old standard, the good cop-bad cop approach, no longer works: "It's not just that Joe Perp is on to it, having seen good cop-bad cop a million times on reruns of Hawaii Five-O. The only time bad cop was any good was in the old days, when he used to come into the interrogation room every ten minutes and smash your suspect over the head with the yellow pages." With such discourses, Amis is stretching the rubber band of his book's realism. But in the end, all his fancy footwork doesn't stop us from admiring and pitying his heroine, and hoping she won't board the ultimate night train: suicide.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A new reissue series of Martin Amis's novels to mark his 70th birthdayA sharp twist on the noir genre from one of England's finest fiction writers'I worked one hundred murders,' says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman. 'In my time I have come in on the aftermath of maybe a thousand suspicious deaths, most of which turned out to be suicides, accidentals or plain unattendeds. So I've seen them all- jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters, poppers, bursters. But of all the bodies I have ever seen none has stayed with me, in my gut, like the body of Jennifer Rockwell. I say all this because I am part of the story I am going to tell, and I feel the need to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.'Night Train is a mystery story which lingers in the reader's mind even after Mike Hoolihan declares the case closed.'Tough, noir, Chandleresque' Independent'Night Train is both delicate and bruising - a long drawn-out blue note. The book hangs around in the mind like smoke in a jazz club' Telegraph Magazine Detective Hoolihan, a policewoman, a police in cop parlance, begins to investigate the death of Jennifer. The evidence swings towards suicide - the gun in her hand, the suicide note, the secret history of depression and drug addiction, and then swings away; could be suicide administer three and why does the autopsy reveal no sign of drug abuse? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780099748717
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780099748717
Book Description Condition: New. pp. 160. Seller Inventory # 5299546
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780099748717
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9780099748717-GDR
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. 'I worked one hundred murders,' says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman. I say all this because I am part of the story I am going to tell, and I feel the need to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.' Night Train is a mystery story which lingers in the reader's mind even after Mike Hoolihan declares the case closed. Seller Inventory # B9780099748717
Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. 'I worked one hundred murders,' says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman. 'In my time I have come in on the aftermath of maybe a thousand suspicious deaths, most of which turned out to be suicides, accidentals or plain unattendeds. So I've seen them all: jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters, poppers, bursters. But of all the bodies I have ever seen none has stayed with me, in my gut, like the body of Jennifer Rockwell. I say all this because I am part of the story I am going to tell, and I feel the need to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.' Night Train is a mystery story which lingers in the reader's mind even after Mike Hoolihan declares the case closed. Seller Inventory # DADAX0099748711
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 160 pages. 7.76x5.12x0.43 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0099748711
Book Description Condition: New. In. Seller Inventory # ria9780099748717_new
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6666-GRD-9780099748717