This is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer- his writing is hard, lucid, muscular, his characters of mythic proportions

Once again Magnan captures beautifully the feel of Provence, with its sunbaked landscapes, its mysteries and its edge of danger. Superb

The master of Provencal Gothic

A beautifully and intricately written noir in which unique plots and counterplots abound

Riffling, rolling, reeling . . . Ellroy's best

Riveting . . . Impossible to put down . . . An author who breaks all the rules. He's a kamikaze pilot on a collision course with hell. The pen moves madly across the page . . . A book that is one long scream of rage and emptiness and longing

The most original crime writer of our time

James Ellroy is a genius: the finest American crime writer since Raymond Chandler, and one of the most readable experimental writers in the world

Without him and his crime fiction, there's no David Peace or The Sopranos or Ian Rankin or The Wire or the work of countless writers and film makers who saw a different way of doing things when they first cracked the spine on an Ellroy

Pears brings to life a vibrant 17th-century world...a tour de force

Crammed with period detail, it's as much a novel of ideas as it is of character