Jake's Thing is a satirical novel written by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1978 by Hutchinson, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year. The novel follows the life of Jacques 'Jake' Richardson, a fifty-nine-year-old Oxford don who struggles to overcome the loss of his 'libido'. The book employs characteristic Amis wit and cutting social commentary such as Jake's comment that "the food wasn't much good and they were rather nasty to you, but then it cost quite a lot".
Colonel Sun (1968), by Kingsley Amis, is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's death in 1964; Glidrose Productions used the collective pseudonym "Robert Markham", for British novelist Kingsley Amis, with the intent of so publishing other novels by different writers. Previously, Amis had written the literary study The James Bond Dossier, and the humorous The Book of Bond (under the William Tanner pseudonym), and was rumoured at one time to be the editor and ghost writer of The Man with the Golden Gun, Fleming's final novel (this has since been debunked).
An Amateur Corpse is another fascinating Simon Brett mystery set in the backdrop of theater. Charles Paris is a part-time detective and professional actor, drawn into the affairs of an amateur theater company. Charles's friend Hugo's wife is murdered, and Hugo is charged with the crime. Paris takes on the case personally. The solution to the mystery lies in a clever double alibi. An Amateur Corpse is an absorbing and entertaining account of theatrical back staging, back scratching and backbiting.
Simon Brett is back with one of his best theater-inspired detective novels in Star Trap. Though the target for murder is an odious theater and television star, actor/detective Charles Paris finds that the main character is behind the strange happenings backstage, including the rehearsal pianist being shot in the hand, and an actor falling and breaking his leg. Why does the star want to sabotage his show? The answer is one much more human than it first appears.
Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles, flitting between a re-visualized Midsummer Night's Dream, a mixed-media satire, a late-night revue, and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood-and with a fading pop star as the first victim, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace, and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock. Charles copes splendidly with the Festival, with his affair with the girl with the navy eyes, and with a most complex murder investigation.
