Clive doesn’t approve: he thinks publishing them would betray Molly. Vernon wants to publish them, not only to boost the paper’s circulation but also to scupper Garmony’s chances of ever being elected as prime minister. The photos were found by composer Clive Linley. Molly apparently took a series of photographs of a leading politician, the foreign secretary Julian Garmony, striking poses as a cross-dresser. Essentially, it goes something like this: Vernon Halliday, editor of The Judge, an upmarket newspaper, is handed a story that could rescue the paper’s dying circulation figures. It’s a rather complicated plot, but I’ll try to summarise it as best I can without giving anything away. The trio are friends or enemies, depending on which way the wind is blowing. The story revolves around three men - the aforementioned newspaper editor, a composer and an MP - who are linked by one thing: they are ex-lovers of Molly, a photographer dead at the age of 46 from an unspecified illness. It’s like a game of chess - nothing is immediately obvious, but then a character makes a move and you see what he’s up to or how it might play out before it actually does, which makes it such a fun read. Occasionally it’s what the characters say that elicits a chuckle, but mostly it’s the clever connections and set-ups that McEwan puts into play that deliver the laughs.

Though the humour is subtle, I tittered my way through it. But it’s also a terrific comedy about middle-aged men who will do almost anything to kick-start, or cling onto, stalled careers. The novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1998, is a searing tongue-in-cheek account of journalistic ethics before the internet took over. That’s because the lead character is a newspaper editor, who tries to revive a flagging career and a dive in circulation figures by publishing a series of photographs that could bring down a politician. Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam could easily have been included in my recent 10 books about journalists post. Fiction – paperback Vintage 198 pages 1998.

Amsterdam novel by ian mcewan