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Martin Amis: London Fields

Another I-wish-I-was-Norman-Mailer novel from Amis about love and murder. Trying to establish his postmodernist credentials, Amis bravely plunges into the future (1999 – which is the past when I am writing this and you are reading it and only ten years into the future when Amis published it) and decides to show his eco-credentials. Junk food is bad. So is nuclear war. And messing with our planet will bring forth untold consequences. Wow! Meanwhile back in the Amis world, Nicola Six is preparing to die. (Clever critics have suggested the Six/Sex connection but it seems more likely to me that the name comes from Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna, better known as Nikki Sixx, bassist of Mötley Crüe.) The dying American writer Sam Young is renting the London flat of dramatist Mark Asprey (note the initials – Amis is as subtle as a flying mallet) and is writing a story where we know the victim but the question is not who killed her but who will kill her. Suspicion falls on the very nasty Keith Talent though the wealthy and married Guy Clinch could also be a candidate. As the world slowly falls apart, the murder comes closer. The murder happens. Sadly, the planet survives.

Publishing history

First published 1989 by Jonathan Cape