Book Seventeen 2014: 

Night Train by Martin Amis

This is both a recommendation from my wife and part of the project this year to read “authors I should have read before at some stage”.

I’ve always had a roped-off corner of my world marked “my grá for noir books”. I’ve read a fair few Chandler, Hammett, Ellroys over the years and I’m currently wading my way through this, story by story:

Night Train falls squarely within the genre even though it’s author is English, it deals with a hard boiled cop in the modern day and she’s a tired, disillusioned, older woman instead of your usual Sam Spade archetype.

How this differs is the structure and the end. No spoilers as usual but save to say that it’s a quick read, thoroughly engrossing and has an ending that will slap you hard across the face and then walk away.

Great stuff.