Career
During the 1970s he was Film Editor for Time Out and wrote in Melody Maker. His first film was cult British road movie Radio On, while his 1982 film An Unsuitable Job for a Woman was entered into the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. His films often have a strong element of psychogeography, and he has worked frequently with the writer Iain Sinclair.
He has also written a number of crime novels, including (1993).
(1993) is a novel about a man initially working in London"s Soho in a job vaguely connected with the film industry, who meets the enigmatic title character and becomes involved in alcoholic excess and pornographic film production. There is some confusion over the lead character"s name, which appears to relate to a mysterious figure in Céline"s Journey to the End of Night, inspired by Crusoe.
lieutenant was released around the same time as the first film of Patrick Keiller"s trilogy, which Keiller claimed took the name from Kafka"s Amerika but others, such as Iain Sinclair, have related to Céline and indirectly to Petit. (1997) is a crime thriller set in the Northern Irish Troubles.
(2002) is a thriller, about neo-nazis in contemporary Frankfurt and espionage in World World War II Switzerland.
1993 (Granta Books) 1997 2002.
