Bad Things Happen is a very smart, well-written roller coaster ride that is always threatening to hurl the reader out into roaring empty space. Go along for the thrill ride!

Bad Things Happen is a tense read that keeps you tightly in its grip until the very last page. Harry Dolan has written an incredibly rich, smart read reminiscent of A Simple Plan or Presumed Innocent - not to mention that it's just a damn good story. Readers are in for a breathless ride

Great f***ing book, man. I was totally hooked. I hope you write a dozen more, and that's just next year

You better believe [Dolan] has a gift for storytelling...The narrative comes with startling developments and nicely tricky reversals.

If I say that the novel is as well plotted as Agatha Christie at her best, I don't mean to make it sound old-fashioned; it's not. Even more than Christie, this novel reminded me of Patricia Highsmith. It's witty, sophisticated, suspenseful and endless fun -- a novel to be savoured...and the best first novel I've read this year.

Dolan gets everything right in his debut, a suspense novel that breathes new life into familiar themes. Pitch-perfect prose and sophisticated characterisations drive the noirish plot, which offers plenty of unexpected twists. Fans of Peter Abrahams and Scott Turow will find a lot to like...the talent Dolan displays suggests he has a bright future.

Harry Dolan has written a wonderfully moody and atmospheric story ... a tightly plotted, sophisticated, and engrossing debut novel. Dolan has a fine ear for good dialogue and an uncanny sense of how people think and act, and why they do what they do. This is a winner

From the astringent first sentence - 'The shovel has to meet certain requirements' - Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan builds like a thunderhead into an atmosphere of darkness, dread, and impending doom. It is a hypnotically readable novel, with richly wrought characters, a corkscrew plot, and dialog worthy of Elmore Leonard. What a breathtaking debut.

tasty tale...Dolan's neatly symmetrical plot is tight, his dialogue is crisp, and his humor wry. (Rarely have suspects been so archly articulate.) A twisty whodunit with a thriller's pace...

a brilliant first novel

Thriller-writing of the highest order

somewhere between thriller and surreal fantasy

this thoughtful, thoroughly satisfying novel... clever storytelling to reach imaginative heights