Fiona – A neighbour of Michael who becomes a close friend. Falls ill but, owing to cutbacks to the Health Service, fails to get treatment before her condition is too advanced to treat, and dies from Lymphoma. Joan – A female friend of Michael's from his childhood, a social worker, who he visits at her home in Sheffield in 1982, meeting Phoebe and Graham for the first time there. Findlay Onyx – A private investigator with a weakness for cottaging that gets him into constant trouble with the law. Helps Michael in his investigation into the death of Godfrey and discloses to Michael the truth about his biological father. Graham Packard – A young film maker with strong left-wing views. While a student he lodges with Joan alongside Phoebe Barton. After graduating he starts his own production company but by chance is able to work alongside Mark Winshaw, seeing closely into the business of arms dealing. He is caught by Mark taking video footage for a planned documentary and is almost killed by the beating that follows. Phoebe Barton – An aspiring artist who is tricked into sleeping with Roddy by his promises of artistic patronage. She is offered a position working for Mortimer Winshaw, Roddy’s father, as his nurse, which she accepts. At the final night in Winshaw Towers, she and Michael become lovers. What a Carve Up! is considered an example of a postmodern novel, employing multiple narrative styles, different perspectives, movement between first- and third-person narrative voices and a highly fragmented timeline. Robert McCrum called it "the finest English satire from the 1980s - a memorable and explicit commentary on Thatcherism." In 2015, the author published a related novel set in the early 21st century, "Number 11". The latter novel is sometimes described as a sequel but elsewhere using other phrases such as a "sequel, of sorts." The relationship between the two books is suggested in the later novel (describing the relationship between two films, "What A Carve-Up!" and "What A Whopper", which are stand-ins in the two novels for the novels) as: "Sequels which are not really sequels. Sequels where the relationship to the original is oblique, slippery." The later book contains some characters from the earlier book, more characters who are descendants or proteges of its characters, and several references to its plot and themes. BBC Radio 4 broadcast an eight-part dramatisation between February and April 2005.