Keith Talent is a Crook and Cheat

London Fields is a black comic novel murder mystery by British writer Martin Amis.

The characters have few, if any, redeeming features.

Recently arrived in London, he immediately meets Keith Talent, a cheat (i.e. a small-time criminal)…

Keith regularly cheats on and abuses his wife. He regularly sleeps with an underage girl in return for cash payments to her mother. He drinks, gambles, and takes part in burglaries and semi-violent crime (although he is unable to follow through with actual violent crime). He is addicted to pornography and television to the extent that he is unable to distinguish reality from what is shown on the screen. He has raped several women in the past (including his wife).

A witless, wife-beating darts enthusiast, ”Keith cheated people with his limousine service at airports and train stations; he cheated people with his fake scents and colognes at the pavement stalls of Oxford Street and Bishopsgate . . . he cheated people with non-pornographic pornography in the back rooms of short-lease stores. . . . Keith earned three times as much as the Prime Minister and never had any money, losing heavily every day at the turf accountants on Portobello Road. . . .

“Keith Talent was a bad guy. Keith Talent was a very bad guy. You might even say that he was the worst guy. But not the worst, not the very worst ever. There were worse guys. Where?”