The hero of William Boyd's new comic novel, Armadillo, is most unlucky--but he'll get over it

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

long about halfway through William Boyd's amusing seventh novel, Armadillo (Hamish Hamilton, 310 pages), the hapless protagonist Lorimer Black decides that his life is governed by the laws of "zemblanity," which he describes as "the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design." By this point in the action, Lorimer has encountered a hanged man; his car has been torched; his job jeopardized; his fastidious private life invaded by the buffoonish Torquil Helvoir-Jaynes. His very existence appears to be a prime example of Murphy's Law: if something can go wrong, it will.

But according to the comforting laws of Boydian comedy, honed in such earlier books as A Good Man in Africa and The New Confessions, the reader can rest safe. In this world, no injury is truly grave, mistaken identities only add to the general hilarity, and star-crossed lovers eventually unite. Much of what occurs to poor Lorimer, after all, is the work of an author ever in quest of a punch line. Sure enough, a few pages after Lorimer coins "zemblanity," a hooded thug beats him up. "Why are you walking in that canted-over way?" a friend asks him the next day. "Random urban violence," Lorimer responds. "But you should see the other guy."

Lorimer is a hard-working, 30-ish insurance loss adjuster who lives in present-day London, a vividly sketched city that bears a surprising resemblance to the Dickensian capital. Boyd's London, too, is a realistic enough place, where people work and scheme and fall in love and get drunk, but the people happen to have names like Dymphna, Hogg, Bogdan Blocj, Marlobe, Flavia Malinverno and Sir Simon Sherriffmuir--and personalities to match. The names provide much of the comedy, in fact. There is a very satisfying running gag involving the unintelligibility and unpronounceability of Torquil Helvoir-Jaynes ("Stalk hilly virgin," "Thought we'll heave the gin," "Talk, or we'll leave her, Jane"), and a Detective Rappaport insists to Lorimer that his name be pronounced "Rappapor": "The 't' is silent, sir," he explains. "Old Norman name."

One of the other great pleasures of this book, which is a financial mystery of sorts, involving a burned-down building, suspiciously high insurance premiums, stock offerings, and claims for millions of pounds, is the opportunity to enter the world of insurance loss adjusters. Lorimer must be the first representative of his profession in all of literature, and he makes it seem like consuming work indeed, involving suitcases of money and a sort of high-stakes poker in which Lorimer tries to get the other guy to blink first, or, as he says somewhat more blandly, to "see if the loss is in fact as great as it is claimed, and, if not, then to adjust it, downwards."

The metaphoric implications of this career are--like those in Richard Ford's recent Independence Day, about a real estate agent who has lost his own place in the world--a bit over-obvious. Lorimer's own sense of loss and need for self-adjustment are hidden in plain sight. Born Milomre Blocj, he has virtually disowned his somewhat embarrassing gypsy relatives who run a minicab business in Fulham and instead donned the invisible armor of a British public schoolboy. A handsome loner in love with an unavailable woman (the aforementioned Flavia Malinverno), he is busy readying a safe house that he plans to escape to, if the need ever arises. Add to all this the book's spiky title, and the fact that Lorimer actually collects ancient armor, and the reader is tipped off to the fact that thematic subtlety is perhaps not Boyd's strong suit.

The author's attempts at adding depth to what would otherwise be an enjoyable romp for the most part fall flat. The narrative is also dotted--or padded--with episodes from Lorimer's past, transcribed in his journal, "The Book of Transfiguration," and with his experiences in "the Institute of Lucid Dreams," a sleep laboratory, where he is seeking a cure for his insomnia. Lucid dreams, in which the sleeper actually controls the action of the dream, offer a not very compelling counterpoint to the waking reality of Lorimer's life, which is clearly spinning out of control.

Instead, this is a book to be enjoyed for the mystery--which Boyd manages to make remarkably engaging, considering that Lorimer himself needs to consult with a Times financial columnist to sort it all out--and for its many comic set pieces. A night at Binnie and Torquil Helvoir-Jaynes' country house (Priddion's Farm, Monken Hadley) ends in drunken misbehavior and bed-hopping, while an "at home" at Fiona and Simon Sherriffmuir's comes to resemble a three-ring circus crossed with a Buster Keaton movie. Things get worse and worse for Lorimer until he has nowhere to go but up. In Boyd-land, such ridiculous chaos--such serendipity--means that all's well that ends well enough.