Gripping storytelling

Engrossing

As impressive as it is unnerving

Crisply written and fast-moving, the novel has a brutal honesty that confirms Neville's place in the first division of crime writers

Crime fiction doesn't get much better

What makes Stuart Neville so special is that he never forgets the human heart that beats inside the bleakest darkness

Succinct and pacy storytelling stretched taut across a morass of unresolved tensions and motives for murder that don’t necessarily fit the prevailing post-peace process narrative. Lennon could well serve as a poster boy for conflict resolution, a deeply flawed man who has in the past been his own worst enemy and is now battered and scarred, physically and emotionally, as he pursues truth and justice by any means necessary

This is crime fiction right out of the top drawer. The dialogue throughout the book snaps and jitters with electricity, and as the climax unfolds nothing will be able to make you put the book down. The elements of pity, humanity and compassion are never far under the swirling surface action of this novel, and it will certainly be put on my ‘best of 2014' shelf

Neville is back with a bang… Just as captivating as the previous novels… I loved everything about the book

Neville, who was heaped with praise for his first book, has managed to keep the good stuff coming, and his new novel shows no sign of a dip in performance

With a sure grasp of the mechanics of suspense, Neville’s real coup is his multifaceted and conflicted protagonists

A chillingly brilliant thriller

A sustained work of near genius that takes a very familiar theme - man leaves wife for younger model - and not only brilliantly dissects the breakdown of the marriage but also teh consequences for the couple's close circle of friends ...Cohen's first foray into psychological suspense is a triumph.

Taut, tense and addictive

Cohen’s marital drama morphs into a psychological thriller, and a last-minute twist set into motion much earlier in the narrative is brilliant.

A war novel like no other…“Dark desires sizzle” and explode with a furious climax. Ellroy is not only back in form – he’s raised the stakes.

One of the most original and daring writers alive.

It’s an epic 687-page undertaking that is at times disturbingly violent – a must for noir fans.

Ellroy, writing in his signature telegraphic style, strives to depict reality, every dark aspect of it: there’s murder, apparent ritual suicides, hate crimes and a world of characters that you just cannot root for. Ellroy successfully establishes his four main characters, alongside a wealth of fully developed, clever and sophisticated secondary characters, within his own creation of a microcosm of a community challenged by politics and an unavoidable history.

James Ellroy is the best crime writer in the world.

A brash, two-fisted tour-de-force of spleen and invective which holds up a cracked and tarnished mirror to a turbulent period of American history … powerful in scope, theme and character … for blood and guts, he could give Beowulf a run for its money … it is impossible to deny the power and energy that has gone into Perfidia, which is more than a crime novel whilst showing, at the same time, what the crime novel is capable of.

The prose is as tight and fast moving as ever … If you are in pursuit of vintage Ellroy, this book is for you.

A sprawling, uncompromising epic of crime and depravity.

As unflinching and sharp as ever, even more so . . . Perfidia might be his [Ellroy’s] finest novel yet . . . Its story is full of tectonic movements, fascinating and dangerous characters with ambiguous morality, and events bigger than life itself. It’s brilliant in its complexity and vastness.

As abrasive and compelling as always.