"A good private-eye novel . . . is not really about violence; it's about the fallibility of people, about the grotesqueries of modern life, and not least it is about one man, the detective, who defines the moral order." This statement, from Washington Po...

Is Amis's Yellow Dog truly a dog-or a post-satiric romp? YELLOW DOG By Martin Amis Miramax, 340 pp., $24.95 VICTORIA'S SECRET Is that what the writer should do-shirk the task and strike an attitude?" asks a character in Martin Amis's provocative Yellow...

Jody steps into the hallway and sets the dogs to barking. "It's not you," Glenda shouts from behind her. "They do that to everyone." Jody takes another step down the hall. The smells of dog, spray cleaner, and microwave burritos waft up...