London Fields (Pocket size) by Martin Amis

Writer, Samson Young, is staring death in the face, and not only his own.

Void of ideas and on the verge of terminal decline, Samson’s dash to a decaying, degenerate London has brought him through the doors of the Black Cross pub and into a murder story just waiting to be narrated.

At its centre is the mesmeric, doomed Nicola Six, destined to be murdered on her 35th birthday. Around her: the disreputable men who might yet turn out to be her killer. All Samson has to do is to write Nicola’s story as it happens, and savour in this one last gift that life has granted him.

'A true story, a murder story, a love story and a thriller bursting with humour, sex and often dazzling language' Independent

London Fields is more complex and affecting than its predecessor, Money, or the nuclear-haunted short stories of Einstein's Monsters. It is a state-of-England novel that also examines the state of the writer... He gives us a true story, a murder story, a love story, and a thriller bursting with humour, sex, and often dazzling language.