 First edition | |
| Author | Martin Amis |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Detective fiction, parody |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 2 October 1997 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 175 |
| ISBN | 0-224-05018-4 |
| OCLC | 37778888 |
| 823/.914 21 | |
| LC Class | PR6051.M5 N5 1997 |
Night Train (1997) is a comedic parody of American detective novels [1] by the author Martin Amis, named after the song "Night Train", which features twice in the novel.
This book is told from the perspective of Detective Mike Hoolihan, a female detective who is charged with the task of finding the motivation for Jennifer Rockwell's suicide (she shot herself in the head three times, supposedly). Jennifer, a beautiful astrophysicist with a seemingly perfect life seems to have had no reason to kill herself. Thematically, the book touches on cosmology and chaos theory, and their relation to the human condition as a possible motive for suicide.
Hoolihan is a recovering alcoholic and former homicide detective who lives with an obese man named Tobe in an unnamed American city. She reveals that she had been sexually abused as a child, revolted violently against the abuse at the age of ten, and then pursued a number of affairs with abusive or unworthy men. Despite her disadvantages, she becomes a successful detective before her illness forces her to accept less demanding work seizing assets from criminals. Her experiences lead her to examine gender roles in police work.
Her former boss, mentor and personal friend "Colonel" Tom Rockwell, asks her to investigate the apparent suicide of his daughter Jennifer who, as a beautiful, intelligent, cheerful, popular woman, had no obvious reason for taking her own life. Rockwell suspects Jennifer's lover Trader Faulkner, a distinguished academic, of murdering Jennifer. Hoolihan attempts to pressure Faulkner into confessing, but fails. She discovers that Jennifer was taking lithium, met a philandering salesman in the bar of a local hotel, and made uncharacteristic mistakes at work shortly before her death. Hoolihan then deduces that these factors are merely "blinds" - or clues - deliberately planted by Jennifer for the benefit of an investigation at the behest of her father. Hoolihan concludes that these blinds are meant either to provide the less astute investigator with a sense of "closure", or to indicate a greater bleakness, or nihilism. After breaking down while attempting to communicate her findings to Rockwell - who immediately expresses his concern - Hoolihan heads for the nearest bar, knowing that the alcohol will kill her.
The novel was adapted into the 2018 film Out of Blue , written and directed by Carol Morley and starring Patricia Clarkson.
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Martin Louis Amis was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and was twice listed for the Booker Prize. Amis served as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing from 2007 until 2011. In 2008, The Times named him one of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a detective novel by the British writer Agatha Christie, her third to feature Hercule Poirot as the lead detective. The novel was published in the UK in June 1926 by William Collins, Sons, having previously been serialised as Who Killed Ackroyd? between July and September 1925 in the London Evening News. An American edition by Dodd, Mead and Company followed in 1926.
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a British crime drama television series, starring Patricia Routledge as the title character, Henrietta "Hetty" Wainthropp, that aired for four series between 3 January 1996 and 4 September 1998 on BBC One. The series, spawned from a pilot episode entitled "Missing Persons" aired by ITV in 1990, was co-created by writers David Cook and John Bowen, co-starred Derek Benfield as Hetty's patient husband Robert, and Dominic Monaghan as her assistant and lodger Geoffrey Shawcross.
London Fields is a blackly comic murder mystery novel by the British writer Martin Amis, published in 1989. The tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections, to a dark sense of foreboding and eventually panic at the approach of the deadline, or "horror day", the climactic scene alluded to on the very first page.
Elizabeth Jane Howard, was an English novelist, author of 12 novels including the best-selling series TheCazalet Chronicles.
Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence (1991) is a novel by Martin Amis. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1991. It is notable partly because the events occur in a reverse chronology, with time passing in reverse and the main character becoming younger and younger during the novel.
Money: A Suicide Note is a 1984 novel by Martin Amis. In 2005, Time included the novel in its "100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present". The novel is based on Amis's experience as a script writer on the feature film Saturn 3, a Kirk Douglas vehicle. The novel was dramatised by the BBC in 2010.
Requiem for a Nun is a work of fiction written by William Faulkner. It is a sequel to Faulkner's early novel Sanctuary, which introduced the characters of Temple Drake, her friend Gowan Stevens, and Gowan's uncle Gavin Stevens. The events in Requiem are set in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County and Jackson, Mississippi, in November 1937 and March 1938, eight years after the events of Sanctuary. In Requiem, Temple, now married with a child, must learn to deal with her violent, turbulent past as related in Sanctuary.
The Information is a 1995 novel by British writer Martin Amis. The plot involves two forty-year-old novelists, Gwyn Barry (successful) and Richard Tull. Amis has asserted that both characters are based on himself. It is, says Amis, a book about "literary enmity".
Yellow Dog is the title of a 2003 novel by the British writer Martin Amis. Like many of Amis's novels, the book is set in contemporary London. The novel contains several strands that appear to be linked, although a complete resolution of the plot is not immediately apparent. An early working title for the novel, according to an interview Amis gave with The Observer Review in September 2002, was Men in Power. Despite some rather harsh criticism, Yellow Dog made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize in 2003.
The Rachel Papers is Martin Amis's first novel, published in 1973 by Jonathan Cape.
Tahiti Syndrome, while not officially recognized by psychologists as a mental condition, is a term used by some to refer to a condition in which a person suffers a feeling of dissatisfaction despite having achieved all their dreams. It is often applied to individuals of such great wealth and success that they feel they no longer have anything left in life to accomplish. It is common with people who assign great value to their career and, although they have achieved much, do not feel satisfied.
Other People is a novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1981.
Dead Babies is Martin Amis's second novel, published in 1975 by Jonathan Cape. It was published in paperback as Dark Secrets. Amis's second novel—a parody of Agatha Christie's country-house mysteries—takes place over a single weekend at a manor called Appleseed Rectory. In 2000, the book was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Paul Bettany and Olivia Williams. In 2001, BBC critic David Wood wrote "Amis's second novel ranks among his most incendiary with its mordant wit, black comedy, and sense of the violently absurd."
Success is Martin Amis's third novel, published in 1978 by Jonathan Cape.
Apartment 1303 3D is a 2012 supernatural horror film directed by Michael Taverna. The US-Canadian co-production is an English-language remake of the 2007 Japanese film Apartment 1303, which in turn is an adaptation of the novel Apartment 1303 by Japanese author Kei Ôishi. The film stars Mischa Barton, Rebecca De Mornay and Julianne Michelle. The film officially went into production in Montreal in early November 2011. The film was released theatrically in Russia on December 6, 2012. In the United States, the film was released on the VOD platform on June 17, 2013, followed by a theatrical release on July 25, 2013.
Saga Norén is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Danish/Swedish TV series The Bridge (Bron/Broen). She is played by Swedish actress Sofia Helin. Saga is introduced as a member of the Malmö County Police Department in the first episode of the series. Suggested, but never stated, as being autistic, she is portrayed as completely oblivious to social norms, but a brilliant and devoted police investigator.
The Overstory is a novel by Richard Powers published in 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company. It is Powers' twelfth novel. The book is about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction of forests. Powers was inspired to write the work while teaching at Stanford University, after he encountered giant redwood trees for the first time.
Out of Blue is a 2018 crime drama film, directed by Carol Morley. It was produced by Cairo Cannon, Maggie Monteith and Luc Roeg and stars Mamie Gummer, James Caan, Toby Jones, Patricia Clarkson and Jacki Weaver. It is based on Martin Amis' 1997 novel Night Train.
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