As Maureen Cleave puts it John's suicide 'haunts the book' as it builds towards a life-affirming conclusion. Alex Clark, writing in the TLS, said 'Her narrative voice is flippant, wise-cracking, streetsmart and hard as nails. Its brittleness sometimes stretches the reader to an almost unbearable degree before a compensatory piece of warmth, in the form of an abrupt confession, a piece of apparently unmediated emotion, is forthcoming.' Third novel: Penniless in Park Lane Carole Morin's third book Penniless in Park Lane was published by John Calder in 2001. In a satirical depiction of London as the love affair with New Labour starts to cool, it tells the story of Astrid Ash. 'Astrid Ash is a bitch of the highest order,' says Paul Dale, writing in The List. 'Part-time model, full-time swinging micro celeb, she lives with her millionaire boyfriend and corrupt New Labour MP Ginger. When he dumps her, she returns to her native Glasgow with her moaning mum and mealy-mouthed friend. Going stir crazy..she works out a ruse to smooth a return to Ginger's penthouse and wreak horrid revenge.' Mark Stanton, writing in the Glasgow Herald describes Ash as 'a vulnerable yet tough woman who rails against the mediocrity and hypocrisy which surround her.' Stanton quotes Ash, in a scene in which she visits an orphanage, as striving for a 'reason to organise a happy ending', going on to say 'It is well worth hanging on to find out if Astrid's own ending is to be a happy one.' 'What a talented, funny and downright addictive writer Carole Morin is, says Paul Dale, describing Penniless in Park Lane as 'perfectly structured' and seeing in it 'shades of Wilde and Plath'. Friend and editor of Sylvia Plath, Al Alvarez described the book as 'funny, troublesome, rude, vindictive, sharp as a knife and elegantly written'. Amanda Blinkhorn, writing in the Hampstead and Highgate Express described Penniless in Park Lane as a 'sharply observed modern satire on New Labour.' 'Carole Morin gave up guilt for Lent,' Blinkhorn continues, 'and has no intention of succumbing to the temptation of wallowing in it again. In a world where women particularly are almost required to be overworked, overtired and overwrought, she is a refreshing, not to say alarming, beacon of decadence...with a teenager's bafflement about the modern obsession with trying and failing to have it all....' Kim Millar, writing in the Evening Times described Penniless