A classic coming-of-age epic

Has the paranoid, hallucinatory feel of a mind slowly breaking down... It's a bold response to Serbia's bloodstained history

A masterpiece, a thrilling maelstrom of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies

Kafka for our times

Albahari is one of the great writers of this world and we do not know it, or not enough

Set in post-Orange Revolution Kiev, Kurkov's narrative is a meditation on the uneasy dreams of a troubled cultural psyche

Blackly surreal... Kurkov has an artisan's eye for quirky detail but dispatches it with terse Eastern pessimism. Here, he weaves a low-key epic in which a series of characters - a single mother, a sniffer-dog handler, a security guard, a politician, a man having an affair in his sleep, a widow, two cats and a plastinated corpse - become embroiled in a bizarre conspiracy involving a drug that sharpens people's sense of justice and a very dodgy milking operation. It sounds fanciful but Kurkov never gets too caught up in this world, describing it with a pragmatic economy and powerful clarity

Kurkov's imagination kicks into high gear and turns Kiev into an absurdist playground. The result is a whimsical, skewed vision which can be, by turns, delightful and discomforting

Kurkov entices us along all the fault-lines of his bizarre world, where a young man sleepwalks through a double life and a widow notices her embalmed husband has fresh dirt on his unworn shoes

Drugs, milk and a brace of cats pop up in a murky epic from Ukraine's master of the surreal conspiracy thriller

The separate storylines... twine into a bizarre quasi-murder mystery, featuring anti-fear medicine, human milk used as youth serum, corpse embalming, a cat that comes back from the dead and shady government practices. Ukranian author Andrey Kurkov's direct, unfussy narration is drenched in post-soviet pessimism and alcohol... readers trying to second-guess future twists will be astonished

an unexpected gem and quite possibly the best novel of the year

Outstanding and moving

The most amazing book . . . The author handled the character wonderfully.

heartwarming

A heart-warming story about a boy struggling to communicate with the world

An intriguing, enlightening,and totally compelling read with surely the most unlikely hero in young people's literature

Laugh-out-loud funny

...original, kind, disturbing and profoundly moving.

A stroke of genius, as the advantages of having a naive, literal-minded boy in the driving seat are manifold...we do learn what it might fe el like to have Asperger's Syndrome.

A truly original work of fiction . . .a unique tale

excellent

A wonderful first person narrative of a boy with Asperger;s Syndrome; funny, sad and extraordinarily original

The highlight of the year

This is the magazine of the National Autistic Society: the review is written by someone with Asperger's Syndrome. "This book is a good murder mystery story but a better description of how th mind of a different person with some kind of special need looks upon how things work and come about.

This startlingly original story . . . Has surprised everyone-not least the author.The book is funny, gripping, sad and unstintingly entertaining.

So if you're interested in solving mysteries and want to learn about autism in children, you'll love this book

A triumph from first page to last . . . Haddon's prose is empathetic and you cannot help but be drawn into young Christpher's world

This is a unique book written from the perspective of a unique character . . . It is very easy to read and would satisfy anyone from eight to 88

I found this book highly entertaining and enthralling though it was a bit sad at times.