Her subject is London, its past and its fate... A cabaret of voices from the past cut in and out of her narrative as, firm in her locus, she moves back and forth in time. Her city takes on the dimensions of the City of Man - or Woman. I closed the book intending to reopen it as soon as possible to see what I might have missed

Excellent

Louis MacNeice would have relished the fiction. So will all who care for London

Praise for Ecstasy: Spiky, trashy and brutal… Brilliant, hilarious and infused with a kind of punkish morality

'Many respectable judges would put Edric in the top ten of British novelists currently at work . . . as a writer, he specialises in the delicate hint and the game not given away'

'It will be surprising if this year sees a more disturbing or haunting novel'

'Stunning . . . evocatively brings to life the stifling humidity and constant rainfall of the Congo'

'A really brilliant first novel, he is obviously a major talent'

'The match of the madder moments of John Irving or Tom Sharpe...this is a promisingly entertaining "lite" read'

'At its best when taking pot-shots at a wide variety of modern ills - fast food, tabloid media, downsizing, soap-opera politics...One of Morgan's nicer inventions is a computer program that boils down complex texts to their essentials. Its treatment of the Old Testament renders it down to: "Because I say so, that's why"'

'Suspenseful, atmospheric and highly intelligent, Jody Shields focuses a brilliant light on the murky world of imperial Vienna'