Armadillo: (Penguin Street Art)

'A young man not much over thirty, tall with ink-dark hair and a serious-looking, fine-featured but pallid face, went to keep a business appointment and discovered a hanged man.' Lorimer Black - young, good-looking, but with a somewhat troubled expression - does not understand why his world is being torn apart, though he does know that for the most part it is made up of bluster and hypocrisy. His business, trying to keep insurance companies from paying out the money they've promised, is a con game run with the protection of the law. One winter's morning, Lorimer goes to keep a perfectly routine business appointment and finds a hanged man. A bad start to the day, by any standards, and an ominous portent of things to come. 'A novel that is truly comic, and, like all true comedy, also disturbing.' Scotsman Cover art by- Yok 'whether the book addresses graffiti explicitly, evoke a city from the past, or are considered cult classics, the novels all share the quality - like street art - of speaking to their time.' Guardian Gallery

About the Author :
William Boyd is the author of one work of non-fiction, three collections of short stories and thirteen novels, including the bestselling historical spy thriller Restless - winner of the Costa Novel of the Year - and Any Human Heart, in which the character of Ian Fleming features. Among his other awards are the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Jean Monnet. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2005, he was awarded the CBE. Born in Ghana in 1952, William Boyd spent much of his early life in West Africa. He now divides his time between the south-west of France and Chelsea, where he lives a stone's throw from James Bond's London address. William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana and was brought up there and in Nigeria. He was educated at Gordonstoun School and at the Universities of Nice, Glasgow and Oxford. Between 1980 and 1983 he was a lecturer in English literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford. He is the author of A Good Man in Africa, which won the Whitbread Literary Award for the Best First Novel in 1981 and a Somerset Maugham Award in 1982; On the Yankee Station (1982), a collection of short stories; An Ice-Cream War, which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize for 1982 and was sho

Review :
A novel that is truly comic, and, like all true comedy, also disturbing Marvellously paced and ingeniously plotted. A real page-turner Armadillo doesn't miss a trick. It has depth and resonance which will make you want to read it again . . . zinging readability A joy to read: east to get into, addictively plotted and beautifully written As entertaining and as thought-provoking as anything Boyd has ever written