'We had better start ranking Heyer alongside such incomparable whodunit authors as Christie, Marsh, Tey and Allingham'

'Rarely have we seen humour and mystery so perfectly blended'

'Sharp, clear and witty'

'Heyer's characters and dialogue are an abiding delight to me ... I have seldom met people to whom I have taken so violent a fancy from the word "Go"'

'The wittiest of detective writers'

I wrote, "Along Came a Spider is the best thriller I've come across in many a year. It deserves to be this season's no. 1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name." A household name, indeed.

Every once in a while a writer comes along and fundamentally changes the way people read. He or she is so bright, so innovative, so industrious that what they envision and create becomes the measure by which all others are judged. In 1993 one such writer - James Patterson - began to do just that ... James Patterson is the gold standard by which all others are judged

[Alex Cross] has become one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time, a character for the ages.

Alex Cross is a legend.

Patterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It's what fires off the movie projector in the reader's mind.

Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried... there's no stopping his imagination.

Patterson is in a class by himself.

[Patterson's] books don't pussyfoot around when it comes to the villains. These are bad, bad people ... with a lot of intrigue in high places.