Harrowing and shocking

Fascinating and brilliant

There is no room for debate: the most important writer of foreign crime fiction at work today is Karin Fossum

Norway's "queen of crime"

Among the most popular Norwegian crime writers... the best, in my view, [is] Karin Fossum

This book is ideal for fans of mystery and intrigue

Lee Child is on brilliant form in The Affair... for sheer page-turning ability it's unbeatable

Plenty of action... much more of a whodunit than anything Lee Child has previously written... The gripping plot and breathtaking violence ensure it is difficult to put down

Rendell is excellent on the delicate snobbery of the uneasy territory in between the social classes... The novel’s plot forms a complex web in which power sways back and forth between employer and employed.

Well-written, tense and with some very nasty images, this isn’t Niven’s first book…, but it is his first thriller, and…a good one.

Brilliantly written, Cold Hands is that rarest of things – a gripping thriller with real depth. An intense, exhilarating adrenaline rush, I found myself staying up all night to finish it in one sitting. Wonderful.

Gripping and disturbing

The story-telling is little short of brilliant

Perfect plotting, great characterisation, and the kind of payoff that a thriller of this calibre deserves

So many twists and surprises

I'm all for hearing different voices in fiction and I got my wish with this book. The story showed just how someone with Asperger's might view the world. Christopher finds a dead dog and sets about trying to find the dog's killer, but the book is much more than a mystery story... I loved the way Christopher tries to bring order to his world by using Maths which he finds far easier to understand than people

So genuine...It is chillingly heartbreaking and passionately positive in equal measure

So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way...my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas...and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!