We know by now what we can expect from a Kingsley Amis novel. Skillful, acidic characterization. A skirmish in the war between the sexes, always from the male point of view. Foolery at the expense of trendy politics and argot. At least one character whose overriding awfulness steals the show. Conservative outlook, politically and culturally. Taut, loaded dialogue. Low farce.

Now seventy-two, Amis has completed his twenty-first novel, The Russian Girl. Are there any surprises? Not many. Any disappointments? Again, not many. If Amis is anything he’s a pro, and The Russian Girl is well up to standard in terms of readability, funniness, malevolence. Like a lot of his previous books, however (though not like the better ones, such as Jake’s Thing and The Green Man), it finally slips too easily into facile solutions to be fully satisfactory.

Richard Vaisey is in his mid-forties, a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the London Institute of Slavonic Studies. He is a natural academic, enthralled by his subject (the Russian novel) and indifferent to the world at large. He likes sex but it doesn’t loom large in his life.