Book
Armadillo
Lorimer Black works as a loss adjuster in late-twentieth-century London, entering damaged businesses and private lives to decide what insurers should pay. A routine appointment ends with the discovery of a suicide, and the professional detachment on which he depends begins to fail as fraud, corporate pressure and personal grievance converge around him.
Lorimer’s carefully constructed identity is already under strain from his demanding family, an infatuation with a married woman and a fascination with medieval armour. As his work draws him deeper into other people’s disasters, he becomes increasingly unsure which parts of his own life are secure. The novel combines corporate intrigue with a portrait of London shaped by money, migration and anxious self-invention.
More by the author
Other books by William Boyd
