Night Train by
Martin Amis
pbk out October 98
(Vintage)
at £5.99
Yes, I know, your reviewer is sadly behind the times. Night Train came out in 1997 and this paperback towards the end of 1998. But if a book’s worth reading, it’s worth reading when it’s a year or two old. So there’s the question: now the hype has settled, is Night Train worth reading?
For fans of crime fiction, Night Train has a special interest. Since its author is Martin Amis, it was of course both written and marketed as literature with a capital L. But with this, his ninth novel, he chose to use the framework of a certain type of crime fiction, which is not altogether surprising. (Several of his earlier novels, among them London Fields and Other People, have flirted with aspects of the genre.)
We are in California, and the narrator is an alcoholic woman detective named Mike, the originator of that much-quoted, and much mocked, opening line of the novel: “I am a police.” Jennifer, a beautiful academic, commits suicide. There is no forensic doubt about this. Normally the police would draw a line under the case and leave the friends and relations to grieve. Not with Jennifer, though, because her father is Colonel Tom Rockwell, Mike’s boss and mentor. Colonel Tom wants Mike to find out why his beloved daughter killed herself. Mike cannot refuse.
Mean, quick-witted and compassionate, Mike picks her way through a labyrinth of clues. She interviews lovers and friends and colleagues. She delves into Jennifer’s past and finds that in places it intersects with her own. And in the process, the investigation turns inward: who is Mike really investigating, herself or Jennifer?
Night Train works both as a literary novel and as crime fiction - for most of the time. The book’s atmosphere is as resolutely noir as the Queen of Spades. Some reviewers have called it Chandleresque, which is to ignore its uniqueness. It’s short - 149 pages, with a generously sized typeface - but Amis writes as brilliantly as ever. He has a wonderful ear for language and for cultural resonances. He plays a cat-and-mouse game with the conventions of this branch of the genre, mocking and paying homage to them at the same time. He also meditates on the role of perfection in an imperfect world. This is as much a fairy tale as a crime novel.
Only the ending left me uneasy. It is true that in thematic and literary terms the novel’s resolution makes perfect sense. But crime buffs may feel a little let down. Judged by the standards of the genre, Night Train seemed to run out of steam rather than reach the terminus.
But it doesn’t really matter that much. The journey is almost always more important than the destination. Leave literature to posterity: what matters is that Night Train is a very good crime novel as well as a very good novel. (Indeed it underlines the folly of an artificial distinction between the two.)
(
Andrew Taylor
- author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series)
