Jo-Ann Goodwin's Sweet Gum...combines a gripping contemporary crime story with literary symbolism. Hers is a fresh, sometimes comic and profoundly moral new voice.

Brilliant, sparkling and unforgiveably nasty

A writer who refuses to glamorise the violence of the underworld...underpinning the tension with a cracking dry wit...Her skill at characterisation is equal to Zadie Smith's...Like a good, old-fashioned storyteller she is also a mistress at pacing, mischievously lacing her novel with red herrings...a compelling, thoughtful read

Terrifyingly intense and disturbing...her utter fearlessness as a writer gives this novel both its power and ultimately its glory

A modern parable...a nightmare vision...it's bloodcurdling stuff.

A gripping murder mystery...it is Goodwin's pictures that stay with you

This ingenious, amoral thriller crackles with surprises and paints a vivid picture of North London gangster life. It's also as ghoulish as they come, with a truly stomach-churning finale.

Goodwin's novel oozes gore and throbs with the stench of decay. An investigative journalist... Goodwin has first-hand knowledge of the underworld. She is also a fine writer...her crowning achievements are the stomach-churning Shifter sister grotesques and the devil's spawn Minimonster, "a video-nasty made flesh".

Cleverly written and full of truths about our time, this is a top-notch thriller

A distinctly Gothic vision of London that owes as much to Martin Amis as it does to Layer Cake...Goodwin writes with a confident command of the material.

Her books are characterised by the rich symbolism shes uses, which works in contrast to the everyday settings. The themes of loss and redemption are as strong as ever, and...you'll love the colourful world that Goodwin creates

Goodwin does an excellent job...a bleak, clever, complex and utterly compelling thriller with the grip of a pitbull.

Beautifully written...Idiosyncratic and highly enjoyable

North London gangland life and a very nasty murder mystery, but this highly compulsive, unputdownable novel is so much more...The events are extraordinary and the finale very disturbing and the reading experience is one of best I've had for a long time.

Intense and deeply disturbing, Sweet Gum is the kind of story you can't help wishing...was strictly confined to the pages of a book. But it's not - this is real life in a modern world: a seedily contemporary world of criminals, lap-dancing, drugs, perversion, prostitution and betrayal. Written by a journalist known for her investigations into the crime underworld, Sweet Gum brilliantly captures the sense of the London streets with a scintillating nastiness that's totally addictive. Unputdownable

Deliciously bittersweet...vividly evoked...an assured, ambitious and inventive work

Brisk and wry intelligence...there is a constant wit and genuine sparkle of language at work here

Her reputation as a gifted novelist will be assured...Sweet Gum balances a visceral portrait of modern evil with an ambitious work on the themes of redemption, love and justice which is both refreshing and strangely nostalgic.