false <![CDATA[Armadillo]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170901616m/77849.jpg 77849 19 Lorimer Black may suffer from a serious sleep disorder and an obsession with the labyrinths of the British class system, but <I>Armadillo</I>'s peculiar protagonist <I>is</I> the star insurance adjuster of London's Fortress Sure PLC, unaffectionately known as the Fort. At the very start of William Boyd's <i>noir</i>-ish seventh novel, however, things take a decided swerve for the worse. On a bleak January morning one of his cases has apparently chosen to kill himself rather than talk: "Mr. Dupree was simultaneously the first dead person he had encountered in his life, his first suicide and his first hanged man and Lorimer found this congruence of firsts deceptively troubling."<p> Soon our hero, who himself has a lot to hide, finds himself threatened by a dodgy type whose loss he has adjusted way down and embroiled with the beautiful married actress Flavia Malinverno. "People who've lost something, they call on you to adjust it, make the loss less hard to bear? As if their lives are broken in some way and they call on you to fix it," Flavia dippily wonders. Lorimer also has his car torched and instantly goes from an object of affection to one of deep suspicion at the Fort. Then there is another case, the small matter of the rock star who may or may not be faking the Devil he says is sitting on his left shoulder. <p> Needless to say, Lorimer is "becoming fed up with this role of fall guy for other people's woes." Boyd adds a deep layer of psychological heft and a lighter level of humor to this thinking-person's thriller by exploring Lorimer's manifold personal and social fears. This is a man who desperately collects ancient helmets even though he knows they offer only "the illusion of protection." Another of <I>Armadillo</I>'s many pleasures: its dose of delicious argot. Should Lorimer "oil" the apparent perpetrator of the Fedora Palace arson before he's oiled himself? Or perhaps he just needs to "put the frighteners" on him. Boyd definitely puts the frighteners on his readers more than once in this cinematically seedy and dazzling literary display. <I>--Kerry Fried</I> 2199418 1998 Armadillo total:165|5:19|4:69|3:52|2:17|1:8| 165 569 216 14 4 0 false false Wed Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 23:22:34 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 23:26:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 13 16:35:13 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 19 08:44:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 13:11:24 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 13:12:31 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Thu Apr 12 11:51:05 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 12 11:53:41 -0700 2007 ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Aug 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 14 12:26:11 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 14 12:28:31 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Thu Aug 20 03:54:56 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 03:55:31 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 10:17:54 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 02 09:37:34 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Wed Sep 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 07:39:59 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 13:39:03 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Fri Jul 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 05 09:42:10 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 19:16:39 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Aug 27 09:15:18 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 27 09:15:21 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Mon May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Nov 10 15:14:45 -0800 2007 Sat Nov 10 15:17:41 -0800 2007 Good twists..
Like the foreign background of the principal character..]]> 1 0 false false Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 01 10:52:18 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 04:19:59 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Sat Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 01 13:14:34 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 26 07:57:10 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Sun Aug 12 09:42:08 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 09:42:08 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Tue Nov 24 02:37:37 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 24 02:37:37 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Nov 23 06:18:16 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 23 06:18:16 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sat Nov 21 10:00:03 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 21 10:00:03 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Thu Nov 19 22:26:37 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 22:26:45 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Thu Nov 19 10:45:56 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 10:45:56 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Wed Nov 18 14:12:19 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 14:12:19 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=77849