When I read Patti Smith's M Train I was amused by how much time Patti spent watching Law and Order and other police procedurals. It seems so out of character for the godmother of punk. Still that knowledge and her straightforward depiction of her viewership was charming. Apparently Martin Amis was spending his evenings exactly the same way as Patti, That seems even more out of character for this pretentious and oh-so-literary bad boy. I just assumed that he spent every evening drinking too much scotch with Christopher Hitchens and stumbling out of New York and London bars in the wee hours to bang MFA students rather than writing. The things we don't know.

There is no question that Amis can write, but he clearly knows nothing about police or about women that he has not seen on network television. The novella stars two women, one the cop investigating the murder and the other the victim. To say that both are objectified and crafted to suit a very binary view of women is an understatement. I will say that if he were alive someone could tell Amis that hot women are not all happy and that women who choose to to not marry or have children do not turn into Dirty Harry.

You have to go a long way for a criticism of America to piss me off and an especially long way for a criticism of American policing to piss me off, but here we are. I want to believe that he meant this as a criticism of American police procedurals, which is fine, but if he did intend that he failed. I get that the "I'm the job" view of law enforcement is a popular myth, and I get that he was trying to write noir, but his stab at noir was C+ work and so insufficient to support this comic book depiction of police behavior and prowess.

What we have here is a shodily crafted book based upon zero research, or knowledge of the subject matter, or any attempt at nuanced characterization that appears to have been tossed off while sitting in a Lazyboy with a tin of split pea soup and a remote control. So disappointing. ( )

Tren nocturno
Martin Amis
Publicado: 1997 | 145 páginas
Novela Drama Policial Psicológico

Mike Hoolihan, detective del departamento de homicidios, es una mujer muy especial: voz varonil, no demasiado agraciada físicamente, aficionada al Johnny Walker, fumadora, sarcástica, pesimista, malhablada y con una visión algo desencantada de las relaciones humanas y de los hombres (siempre se ha enamorado de la persona equivocada). Es una de las mejores policías del cuerpo, con una especial habilidad para resolver los casos de asesinato más complicados. Acaba de resolver su último caso y se dispone a relatarnos los detalles del mismo: la investigación del supuesto suicidio —para ella, se trata en realidad de un homicidio— de Jennifer Rockwell, la hija Trader, de uno de los agentes más importantes del departamento por quien Mike siente un afecto especial. Por este motivo, pondrá especial empeño en descubrir al asesino de la joven.

An interesting take on the whodunnit as the hard-boiled detective reflects an opposite energy from the self-murdered victim perp. The idea that there is often no real “motive” for suicide was not enough of a news flash to me for this short book to truly resonate. Amis is not as good at existential as he wanted to be. A good idea imperfectly executed, it was very readable but the concept was the only thing that stayed with me, not the writing. All the characters fairly flat, although that could have been intentional. The style could have used more substance. That life is both bleak and beautiful, that there’s no real imperative to go on living, and that many times people do things for no other reason than they can are not new ideas. It would have made an excellent short story, had a good ending, but as a short novel it missed the mark. ( )

Délibérément glauquissime.

"snakes and ladders"
"media up the kazoo"
...
i typed these things while i was reading because i was so annoyed by how amis was getting it wrong. so lazy! but then i started to really like the book, so...yeah. ( )