A savage, funny, and mysteriously poignant saga by a renowned author at the height of his powers.Lionel Asbo, a terrifying yet weirdly loyal thug (self-named after England's notorious Anti-Social Behaviour Order), has always looked out for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Desmond Pepperdine.  He provides him with fatherly career advice (always carry a knife, for example) and is determined they should share the joys of pit bulls (fed with lots of Tabasco sauce), Internet porn, and all manner of more serious criminality.  Des, on the other hand, desires nothing more than books to read and a girl to love (and to protect a family secret that could be the death of him).  But just as he begins to lead a gentler, healthier life, his uncle—once again in a London prison—wins £140 million in the lottery and upon his release hires a public relations firm and begins dating a cannily ambitious topless model and “poet.”  Strangely, however, Lionel's true nature remains uncompromised while his problems, and therefore also Desmond's, seem only to multiply.From BookforumLionel Asbo. . . reads asMoney's thematic sequel. A portrait of an underclass thug who wins the lottery,Asboamplifies the earlier novel's hyperbolic farce . . . Sizing up the media culture that the John Selves of the world designed, pitching his voice somewhere between Dickensian melodrama and J. G. Ballard dystopia, Amis squints contemptuously at the dimming sun of the British Empire. — Troy PattersonReviewIt's a Big Mac made from filet mignon... It is a book of lovehate. It is a powershake. And the biggest joy is that Amis seems to find himself (and finds us, by extension) loving the thing he loathes. It is a great big confidence trick of a novel - an attack that turns into an embrace - a book that looks at us, laughs at us, looks at us harder, closer, and laughs at us harder and still more savagely. It is every inch the novel that we all deserve. So let's give thanks that Marti