What readers tend to remember from McEwan's fiction is its penchant for contriving scenes of awful catastrophe: human dismemberment in ''The Comfort of Strangers'' a confrontation between a woman and two deadly wild dogs in ''Black Dogs'' the tour de force balloon disaster that brilliantly opens ''Enduring Love.'' Nothing in ''Amsterdam'' quite measures up to these events. Its tone overall, as well as part of its theme, reminded me more than once of the excellent 1990 Masterpiece Theater production ''House of Cards,'' in which Ian Richardson plays a sinister Tory cabinet minister. But it is less unsettling than McEwan's earlier solemn-gory fables since its humorous dimension is everywhere apparent - granted that the humor is distinctly black.

On the scale of nastiness, it gets high grades as well. ''Amsterdam'' is very British and, despite its title, takes place mainly in London and the Lake District. But who exactly is driving events here? The last chapter implies that an individual was manipulating events, but that, I feel, might be a step too far - or an I (like others) underestimating them? ( ) It all feels very real, relationships do change and are reassessed when a key person in the relationship is no longer there - in this case Molly. What happens to Clive & Vernon runs the range from male friendship to betrayal to farce. It's a curious story, fast paced and very readable. Clive & Vernon have very different opinions on what to do with these and you can imagine the press kerfuffle. The story takes off when George offers Vernon some pictures of Julian, taken by Molly, that would be career ending for a politician.

They have stronger negative feeling for the husband, George. The third love is Julian, the Foreign Secretary, whom Clive & Vernon do not like. Clive & Vernon are friends, one a composer the other a newspaper editor. It starts at Molly's cremation, where we meet her husband and 3 of her former lovers. This is an odd, but thoroughly readable book.

Amsterdam novel by ian mcewan