Night Train

Rating:
Summary: Runaway Train
Review: Readers who enjoyed Amis' extraordinary novel London Fields or Money may be disappointed with Night Train's brevity and its relative dilutedness. Nonetheless, the novel remains provocative and rather unsettling.

Also apparently unclear to some: Night Train is more than a detective novel; it's an existential investigation into suicide; not a happy topic for many, but an edgy, engaging one for the rest of us.

Rating:
Summary: Amis's stab at American dective novel, fails to draw blood
Review: Right when Night Train starts to get interesting it derails. It's almost as if Amis backed down from the task of writing a good dectective novel right when he had the chance to do it. Basically he gives the reader a good look at the world of forensic science, but not much else. In the end, Night train reads like a literary exercise.

Rating:
Summary: Short and Sour
Review: Short and sour, this is a story of an unconvincing suicide mystery investigated by an unconvincing woman "police" in an unconvincing Chicago. That it does not convince isn't even the main problem. The withholding of information from the reader is. We are told that of all the bodies Ms. Mike O'Hoolihan has ever seen, none has stayed with her like this one. Why? That Officer O'Hoolihan finds the reason for the suicide and doesn't share it, except for a corny reference to suicide being contagious, is downright sophomoric. No mystery here, just a good writer trying to hoodwink his reading public into thinking that he is consistently a good writer. Thanks for nothin' Mr. Amis.

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?

Rating:
Summary: A Fashion Statement
Review: The novels & criticism of Martin Amis have as much viability as art as his screenplay for Saturn 3 with Farah Fawcett. If you really must know what the moments gossip is in Manhattan restaurants then I suggest you skip Amis's laborious attempts at writing and skim through the tabloid Talk to which he contributes. Though personally I find the glossy photos of Gwinnith Paltrow more attractive.

Rating:
Summary: amis.. amis?
Review: This book doesn't seem to resonate the same way any of the other books of Amis' that I've read.. It's also the fastest of his books that I've read. (it took me a day to read). Amis' prose is always distinctive and this one is no exception; the voice of Mike grips you and you believe her.. Amis has surely done his research with the police lingo. However, it seems that the prose delves into a somewhat self-indulgent nature (as if Amis wasn't already).. The plot is a little thin as well; you can predict the ending fairly easily.

The problem with the book, I think, is that for Amis readers, this one lacks the wordplay that his other works exhibit (see dead babies, london fields, money). And because of this, it relies a lot more on its plot but it falls a little flat here too.. I wondered why Amis was even writing about this, why he felt it was important to write about. if it was a meditation on existentialism then he should go brush up on his sartre and heidegger.

Alas... It's still a decent book, just not up to the high standards familiar Amis readers have annointed.

Rating:
Summary: marty does it again
Review: this book is more a philosophical inquiry into human existence than it is a detective novel. try to seek out Janis Bellow's "review" on Night Train - you will be illuminated by her insight: the complexity of Amis' playing field (both of style and theme) here.

p.s. linda hamilton's reading is superb! her audio version of the book foreshadows a great screenplay (possibly a movie deal?) for night train.

Rating:
Summary: ANTI-CLAMATIC SUICIDE MYSTERY
Review: This is a story told by the main character detective Mike Hoolihan who is a female detective who has been a hard driven to succede cop for 15 years she has always strived to be the best.She gets a call from from a detective buddy that he has a suicide of Jennifer Rockwell and he wants mike to notify the parents the father happens to be Colonel Tom Rockwell who is head of the police force and who happens to be like a father figure to mike and took her in to his house to help mike dry out from being an alcoholic.
Colonel Tom and his wife ask Mike to investigate because it donesnt sound like something their daughter would do she had everyting going for her.
This book was pretty good and moved along building up to what would seem a pretty good end maybe explosive but it just did not deliver

Rating:
Summary: A profound and worthwhile read
Review: This is one of those books that can not be characterized as a single genre. It is a compilation of mystery, psychological suspense, and an exploration of the impact of death and suicide on those close to the victim. Mr. Amis' writing is superb. He uses a concise and hard-hitting style to narrate the examination of an apparent suicide of the daughter of a police officer. I could not put the book down and I asked my husband to read it so that we could discuss it together. As a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, I found it profoundly insightful about the mysteries of death and suicide.

Rating:
Summary: Makes an impact
Review: This is the type of book where I think certain life experiences add to its enjoyment. its a gritty, ugly, uncomprosing novel centered around murder (?), urban blight, alcoholism, and suicide. The story proceeds pretty much like an old Mike Hammer cop-thriller (replete with Amis' superior descriptions and style) but with an everpresent undercurrent of despair. Never knowing exactly where that feeling comes from can be credited to Amis' superb writing.

A "Night train" evokes an image of something big and loud, screaming out of the murky darkness, only to disappear again...much like Mike, the lead character's life. What is it we learn in the final 2 paragraphs? That this first person account of a crime investigation is actually a long, sad, suicide note. Definitely worth the read, if youre in the mood.