Masterfully portrays the desolate entities across which his characters move... Ambitious: read with the care it merits, it guides us towards a clearer and more accomodating view of the world

Shukman has Graham Greene's gift for capturing the essence of the exotic locations by using an individual, melancholy style... Consistently moving

Shukman's prose is utterly seductive

Shukman is superb, like Conrad on speed

Wonderfully evocative... A gripping, melancholy and intelligent book about the failures of romanticism, about personal responsibility, and about the wrong choices

Sandstorm is - forgive me - gritty but romantic too, with shades of Greene but also enough originality and feel to suggest Shukman is a name to watch

Perhaps the most intellectual novelist in Europe today. A highly idiosyncratic by engrossing novel

Profound and moving. A wonderful entertainer

Engaging

The opening is delightful, the sort of stuff that has readers rubbing their hands in anticipation...it is good to see Eco recapture something of his former glories, bouncing ideas of his readers with characteristic zest

Stimulating