It starts as a fifties war-of-the-worlds pastiche: an alien life-form arrives in a meteor and quickly mutates, threatening to destroy Arizona as we know it.
The US has about 60, 000 people over 100 and this is expected to quadruple as general life expectancy rises and the "baby boomer" generation arrives at extreme old age.
Among my favourite parts of the book is Mr Mehta's early life in London in the swinging sixties as a callow young man, who arrives from India with a few shillings and bags of Indian tea.