Night Train - (Vintage International) by Martin Amis (Paperback)

About the Book

Under Martin Amis's expert guidance, "Night Train" escalates from a captivating whodunit into a dazzling inquest into perpetrators and punishers, pattern and paranoia, innocence and evil.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of a classic whodunit, "Amis has created a quicksilver narrative that grabs the reader and refuse to let go" (The New York Times).

"Dazzling.... Whistles into the police-procedural structure only to blow it to bits." --Wall Street Journal

Detective Mike Hoolihan has seen it all. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, she's gone from walking a beat, to robbery, to homicide. But one case--this case--has gotten under her skin.

When Jennifer Rockwell, darling of the community and daughter of a respected career cop--now top brass--takes her own life, no one is prepared to believe it. Especially her father, Colonel Tom. Homicide Detective Mike Hoolihan, longtime colleague and friend of Colonel Tom, is ready to "put the case down." Suicide. Closed. Until Colonel Tom asks her to do the one thing any grieving father would ask: take a second look.

Not since his celebrated novel Money has Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect. Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our humanity.

From the Back Cover

Detective Mike Hoolihan has seen it all. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, she's gone from walking a beat, to robbery, to homicide. But one case - this case - has gotten under her skin. When Jennifer Rockwell, darling of the community and daughter of a respected career cop - now top brass - takes her own life, no one is prepared to believe it. Especially her father, Colonel Tom. Homicide Detective Mike Hoolihan, longtime colleague and friend of Colonel Tom, is ready to "put the case down". Suicide. Closed. Until Colonel Tom asks her to do the one thing any grieving father would ask: take a second look. Not since his celebrated novel Money has Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect. Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of a classic whodunit, Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our humanity.

Review Quotes

"A dazzling smart-bomb of a novel that whistles into the police-procedural structure only to blow it to bits.... [Amis] proves he can do autopsies as clinically as Patricia Cornwell and female detectives as convincingly as Lynda La Plante."
--Wall Street Journal

"A virtuoso performance.... Amis has created a quicksilver narrative that grabs the reader and refuse to let go."
--The New York Times

About the Author

MARTIN AMIS is the author of 15 novels--among them Zone of Interest, London Fields, Time's Arrow, The Information, and Night Train--along with the memoir Experience, the novelized self-portrait Inside Story, two collections of stories, and seven nonfiction books. He died in 2023.