A smartly written thriller that opens with a satisfying bang . . . splendid

Powerful and intelligent, with some unexpectedly trenchant humour, this welcome addition to the no-longer-so-speculative pandemic subgenre has plenty to say about grief, love, family ties and gender roles

Bowstring-taut, visceral, and incredibly timely: Beukes's plague-tale is a parable about the glory and terror of Americanism in times of calamity

Lauren Beukes is a writer with a startling imagination, and a masterful ability to rewrite the rules of whatever genre she turns to; and now, right on time, she has turned to dystopian plague

Five years in writing, this intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home

You can't imagine how quickly the world can change in six months - there probably isn't a more resonant sentence to be found in any other novel published this year. A fast-moving thriller [that] splices gut-punching action sequences and feminist gender politics with an impressively light touch. Bubbles with big ideas. This intelligent speculative novel about a pandemic feels alarmingly close to home

Afterland is that rare creature, a ripping tale that neither shies away from big questions nor interesting answers

Teases out the deep familial currents that run through its relationships, explores gender and reminds us that dystopian fiction can be seriously grown-up entertainment

Afterland could not be more timely or terrifying . . . An excellent example of the prophetic nature of speculative fiction. Lauren Beukes is one of the most innovative and provocative writers on the contemporary scene

(A) timely thriller

Perfect lockdown reading

Praise for Lauren Beukes

Unreservedly recommended

Brilliant ... engrossing ... I will be looking forward to whatever Lauren Beukes does next. She's a major, major talent

Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn't put it down

I'm all over it

Utterly original, beautifully written, and I must say, it creeped the holy bejasus out of me. This is something special

Masterful. Lauren Beukes is very *very* good

A new kind of thriller. A dark, relentless, time-twisting, page-turning. It shines

A story that'll leave your head spinning and questioning just who gets to shape the narrative when a woman goes missing...

Ingenious...brilliantly original

Hugely ambitious

An ingenious thriller

Inventive, playful and hugely enjoyable.

Supple and urgent - another slab of Knox brilliance

Knox has produced something extraordinary ... post-modern playfulness [embedded] in a rich and compelling plot that twists and turns until the final pages

Astonishing! So clever, so original! Highly recommended

This clever novel reads like a true crime story (at times you have to remind yourself it's fiction), which makes it all the more compelling

A very stylish novel revealing not only the unreliability of witnesses, but also the voyeurism in much crime reporting, crime investigation, and yes, in those of us who enjoy crime fiction

Book of the year
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox, a provocative mix of real and fictional crime in which the author himself investigates the disappearance of a student named Zoe. But is she a real or fictional character? With a fragmentary narrative style, this is something new in the overcrowded crime genre

Joseph Knox cements his reputation as one of the best of the new guard of British crime writers with True Crime Story, in which one Joseph Knox - a deliciously unflattering self-portrait - becomes entangled in the investigation into the disappearance of a student. It's a meta-fictional trick that helps to create a genuine (and genuinely pleasurable) sense of unease.

A thrilling mystery with a strong emotional heart

Ingeniously constructed, with real flesh-and-blood characters and cliff-hanging suspense