Night Train - Tapa dura

I'VE SEEN THEM ALL: JUMPERS, STUMPERS, DUMPERS, DUNKERS, BLEEDERS, FLOATERS, POPPERS, BUSTERS...BUT OF ALL THE BODIES I HAVE EVER SEEN NONE HAS STAYED WITH ME, IN MY GUT LIKE THE BODY OF JENNIFER ROCKWELL...' So says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman, a police in cop parlance - a term which acknowledges that gender is not what a good cop is about. Mike begins to investigate the suspicious death of Jennifer, a police colleague's daughter, a girl too blessed in looks and love and intelligence to want to exit life. The evidence swings towards suicide - the gun in her hand, the suicide note, the secret history of depression and drug addiction, and then swings away-three shots to the head; could a suicide administer THREE, and why does the autopsy reveal no sign of drug abuse? As Mike probes further into Jennifer's life and death, she approaches the puzzle at the dark heart of the case: 'If not who, then why?' That unanswerable question resonates throughout this haunting short novel and even when Mike announces her investigation concluded and case closed, it lingers in her reader's mind.

Martin Amis is the author of nine novels, a collection of stories and three works of non-fiction. He lives in London.