I finished reading Armadillo by William Boyd last night. A noir-ish dark comedy, with a very British feel. Like Double Indemnity meets Dickens. Lorimer Black is a loss adjuster for an insurance company, whose job is to get his company out of paying large claims. When the book opens, he arrives at an appointment to find the claimant has hung himself. But that ultimately just seems to be for atmosphere, as soon enough he's on the main case, an over-insured hotel striken by fire. The ensuing web of inexplicable conspiracy could be called Kafkaesque, if it didn't seem so petty. More an example of the office drone viewing his workplace antics as Kafkaesque. It isn't really enough to carry the novel, and the sub-plots aren't quite enough to jazz it up (one involves a pop singer, named David Watts, who suffered a mental breakdown right before a world tour; some critics suggest Boyd misunderstood the Kinks song from which the David Watts pseudonym was taken, but it seems to me the point was that the newly-named David Watts is the one who missed the point). The conspiracy takes a more menacing turn near the end, as the story races to a conclusion a bit hastily, leaving lots of loose ends. And Boyd's symbolism (changed names, collecting armor, lucid dreams) is a bit heavy-handed. But I enjoyed the little touches in the depiction of London life, and the gently satirical humor of the novel was enjoyable enough to carry it when the plot wouldn't.

So much to read this summer, and I haven't gotten through nearly as much as I hoped. And now I got it in my head to read Don Quixote, which will be rather time-consuming, so I'm trying to get through a few essential reads before that. And I hope to re-read the Series of Unfortunate Events books before the new one comes out. And, as ever, the stack of magazines in my room now requires its own sherpa.