This is Douglas Kennedy's third best-seller, and it proves that his ability to get those pages turning has now reached the sort of level usually described as "consummate". In The Job, advertising salesman extraordinaire Ned Allen imitates the career path of the hero of Kennedy's previous book, The Big Picture - ambitious Big Apple high-flier who, having come unstuck in a single cataclysmic moment, gradually realises the error of his consumerist city ways and strikes out for country living, mineral water and a much, much smaller mortgage. Alas, it takes Allen the best part of 300 ambitious high-flying pages to get there; worse, by the time he does, his wife - easily the most interesting character in The Job - has decamped to California. Kennedy rattles the plot towards its conclusion with impressive efficiency, but you can't help feeling that if his hero was a heroine, it would all be much more entertaining.
