Outrageous, shocking, wonderful

Himes wrote spectacularly successful entertainments, filled with gems of descriptive writing, plots that barely sidestep chaos, characters surreal, grotesque, comic, hip, Harlem recollected as a place that can make you laugh, cry, shudder.

Chester Himes is one of the towering figures of the black literary tradition. His command of nuances of character and dynamics of plot is preeminent among writers of crime fiction. He is a master craftsman.

A fantasia with a hard brilliant core

A fine crime writer of Chandlerian subtlety though in a vein of sheer toughness very much his own

Chester Himes is the great lost crime writer, as well a great American dissident novelist per se, and an essential witness to his times. Every one of his beyond-cool Harlem novels is cherished by every reader who finds it.

Hieronymus Bosch meets Miles Davis

He belongs with those great demented realists ... whose writing pitilessly exposes the ridiculousness of the human condition

That he could channel this pain and misery into some of the greatest crime novels ever written is a testament to his skill as a writer and his spirit as a man. If this is the first Chester Himes novel you will read then, believe me, you are in for a treat.

Mina writes with wonderful wit and compassion

A brilliant thriller gripping with menace, but also a clear-eyed examination of female friendship and toxic masculinity. Denise Mina, a true original, can make you gasp in horror and laugh out loud on the same page

The Less Dead is one of the best crime novels I have read in ages... fast-paced, deftly-drawn... Denise Mina compellingly catches the tone of voice of angry, abandoned, drug-zonked Glaswegian women

A very urgent and affecting piece

Mina has written the year's best crime novel

A brilliant thriller dripping with menace... Denise Mina, a true original, can make you grasp in horror and laugh out loud on the same page

The always-wonderful Denise Mina with The Less Dead, notable as ever for its story, characters and setting

A great writer and thinker

[A] terrifying and hilarious thriller

Denise Mina gets to the heart of what crime really is. You feel like you are right there, in all the dark nooks and crannies that her characters inhabit

[Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line] makes an urgent case for the protection of the country’s youngest and most vulnerable

Extraordinarily good, deeply moving and thought provoking with brilliant characterisation. A very important book

Anappara delivers nuanced commentary on Indian society amid dark, derring-do adventure

A magnificent achievement: the endeavours of the Djinn Patrol offer us a captivating world of wit, warmth and heartbreak, beautifully crafted through a child's unique perspective

Anappara impressively inhabits the inner worlds of children lost to their families

A first novel of true distinction… There is true Dickensian vigour in the way Anappara evokes the noise and smells, the timeless boredom and the fear of life in the Basti, the slum dwelling… I cannot recommend this too highly

A stunningly original tale. I stayed up late every night until I finished, reluctant to part from Deepa Anappara’s heart-stealing characters

Life in the slums of an Indian city is vividly described in this novel... Though the subject matter is heartbreaking, this debut author handles it with lightness

A dazzling journey into the heart of India and its most vulnerable citizens -- its impoverished and disenfranchised children. A novel at once brimming with the wonder of childhood innocence, and constrained by the heartache of living amidst injustice and prejudice. Deepa Anappara shows us a modern, dangerously divided India that has long needed to be seen

A profoundly emphatic work of creative genius that will stay with you forever

Created from whole cloth, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a richly textured rendition of a world little seen in Indian literature. There is no desire to smooth and tidy in fiction what is untidy in life, but instead there is a pay off for the reader in a story that is as quietly troubling as it is convincing

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is unlike any book I have ever read—surprising, vividly imagined, and full of humor and humanity—and I fell head over heels for Jai, the police-show-obsessed narrator on a quest to find his missing classmate. Deepa Anappara is a writer of rare insight and a sure-footed storyteller. This book will charm you on one page, and rip your heart out on the next

Deepa Anappara takes us inside urban India with astonishing specificity, into a funny and heartbreaking child’s world of wonder and cruelty. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is addictive and unforgettable. Once you’re in Jai’s neighbourhood you don't want to leave

Informed by her times as a journalist in Mumbai and Delhi, Deepa Anappara’s debut is a fine portrait of modern-day India… an utterly convincing voice–lively, cheeky and irrepressible… Anappara skilfully reveals the harsh reality that lies just beyond Jai’s understanding of his world

A story full of humor, warmth, and heartbreak … Jai's voice is irresistible: funny, vivid, smart, and yet always believably a child's point of view … Engaging characters, bright wit, and compelling storytelling make a tale that's bleak at its core and profoundly moving

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is likely to be one of the country's standout works of fiction in 2020

Vivid writing and a gripping plot with an unforgettable narrator

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is less a reading experience than an encounter with a life force. The rattle-tattle energy of the basti will pull the readers in as they experience the smells, colours and tastes of this captivating world. From relaying the rampant poverty to inherent cultural barriers, to corruption including openly bribing police, the book is utterly mesmerising

Anappara’s debut novel immediately charms through Jai’s voice, and Anappara has caught the scale of a child’s world perfectly… Djinn Patrol is the kind of novel you both can’t stop reading and don’t want to end, because it means letting go of characters who feel like friends

This moving and stylish book pulls off a difficult trick. It is an engaging, amusing tale, powered by Jai’s ebullient personality; at the same time it is an insightful portrait of the underside of 21st-century India… As Dickens did, Ms Anappara understands the power of fiction to bring alive the plights of people readers might otherwise overlook

What really sets Djinn Patrol apart…is the authenticity of Jai’s voice. Narrating in the first person, Anappara immerses us not only in Jai’s world of deep social inequities, but also in his internal world… Anappara creates an endearing and highly engaging narrator to navigate us through the dark underbelly of modern India