Night Train

Rating:
Summary: More than just a murder mystery
Review: A gripping read about a tough cop and her problems, her life, her doubt that this brilliant young woman could willingly take her own life. Not an exciting page-turner, not a shoot-'em-up, no car chases, no deeeeep, dark secrets.
But there's an undercurrent, and if you get the What and Why of the very end, you'll understand that this is not just another murder/suspense novel - it's a psychological classic. It's so good, it should be labeled "literature". It should be made into a black & white film. It should win a prize (has it?).
I want to go back and read it again, four or five times. But first I have to catch my breath.

Rating:
Summary: Stylish but lacks depth
Review: Night Train begins like a police procedural but quickly lifts readers beyond the genre into an exploration of the moral territory of suicide. If you want something different from the run-of-the-mill blockbuster novel that provokes thought and can be read in one or two sittings, then Night Train is a good choice.

Stylistically, the novel follows the spare police procedural style. The narrator, Mike, is cut from that cloth: a hard-boiled female officer back on the wagon, rolling towards retirement after one too many alcoholic wipe-outs. She is called in to investigate the apparent suicide of Colonel Tom's (the police commander's) daughter, ostensibly because Mike knows the "victim" and her father, but more because "Colonel Tom was down to his last marble" and Mike is the only straight shooter in the department.

Such strong roots in the police procedural form are used to good effect to explore suicide from several angles by setting a framework for the examination -- also driving the pace and pulling the reader deeper into the novel.

Ultimately, though, the tension and expectation that Amis builds is rather wasted on the weak ending. The book is a short read -- I finished it in under 4 hours on a cross-country flight -- leaving the reader hungering for a longer book more depth and a more satisfactory ending. In addition, the narrator's voice reads like a man's -- I'm not sure Amis is able to adequately imagine the female point of view.

To summarise: intriguing because of its radically different approach to story telling, good pacing and style. Let down by its lack of depth and weak ending.

Rating:
Summary: Terse, poetic, entertaining
Review: The beautiful Jennifer Rockwell is found dead, an apparent suicide. Mike Hoolihan, a female police, as she calls herself, gets the case. What we, the readers, get is an involving and entertaining exploration of the events preceding Jennifer's death, with the terse and poetic Mike describing her own funny but fragile stability as she tries to unravel the mystery.

Mart's writing in this short detective novel is sheer brilliance. For some cold-blooded perfection, I recommend the autopsy. But here's a more manageable example, with Mike describing Tobe, her boyfriend, as well as offering Mart's first treatment of his night train theme. "One thing about Tobe-he sure knows how to make a woman feel slender. Tobe's totally enormous. He fills the room. When he comes in late, he's worse than the Night train: Every beam in the building wakes up and moans."

I wonder, by the way: Does anyone develop the possibilities in a series of sentences as brilliantly as Amis?