The mark of exceptional historical fiction is its creation of an alien world so convincing (and peopled by such fascinating characters) that the reader never wants to go back to the real one. Scott Oden delivers exactly that in The Lion of Cairo, a tale of that reads like a cross between the 'Arabian Nights' and a Hollywood blockbuster. Men of Bronze and Memnon put Mr Oden squarely on the historical fiction map. The Lion of Cairo assures his place in the very front rank

Filled to the brim with assassins and concubines, caliphs and street thugs, the devout and the heretical. It's partly a swashbuckling historical, partly a tale of palace intrigue, partly a fast and furious espionage yarn. A terrific trip into Cairo's exotic past. Just pray the Emir of the Knife is on your side

A comic stroll in a hall of mirrors

Masterful

It was bold of Roth to write a novel about being famous...a comic stroll in the hall of mirrors

Fluent, funny

[Roth's] narrative hand is wonderfully sure, his comic timing worthy of the Ritz Brothers... Not since Henry MIller has anyone learned to be as funny and compassionate and brutal and plaintive in the space of a paragraph

Confirms that she's a writer to watch

A delightful tale

This is an assured second novel - and wonderful company for that long-overdue summer trip

Imaginative and transporting, but entirely unfussy and unsentimental, the novel is written with a glint in the eye that gives it that extra bit of wind beneath its wings

Wilson has done his research impeccably and he writes superbly well