There's a timely feel to this macabre police procedural, which also has shade of the supernatural. After a top politician shoots his family, Detective Tony McLean uncovers an establishment sex-abuse ring, operated at a mental hospital. Creepy, gritty and gruesome

The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin: it's dark, violent, noirish

Crime fiction's next big thing

Literary sensation . . . James' overnight success has drawn comparisons with the meteoric rise of E L James and her Fifty Shades of Grey series

Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers

Fifty Shades of Hay

Deliciously twisted ... truly chilling

A tense, taut, almost gothic thriller ... impossible to stop reading. A brilliantly written, stand-out novel

The wit is sharp and the plot full of punishing twists

An unputdownable psychological thriller with an ending that lingers long after turning the final page

A page-turner chock full of lies and betrayals

Liz Nugent's characters are as unforgettably monstrous as they are believable. A superbly crafted novel and an absorbing portrait of the purest kind of evil

Excellent ... You can't put the book down. Highly recommended

"My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it." ... Lydia Fitzsimons lives in the perfect house with her adoring husband and beloved son. There is just one thing Lydia yearns for to make her perfect life complete, though the last thing she expects is that pursuing it will lead to murder . . .

Gone Girl fans will love Liz Nugent's Lying in Wait ... it twists, it turns, its characters are utterly despicable and it is a compulsive triumph

A stunningly talented writer

A tense, taut, almost gothic thriller where the tension tightens to near unbearable proportions. I devoured it in one sitting because it was impossible to stop reading. A brilliantly written, stand-out novel

Deliciously twisted, shot through with dark and acid humour and the denouement is truly chilling

A gradual descent from ordinary, straightforward murder to the very heart of darkness. Liz Nugent's characters are as unforgettably monstrous as they are believable ... superbly crafted

She keeps the reader on the edge of their seat from page one until the completely unexpected ending. I read Lying in Wait in one sitting. I just couldn't bear the suspense. I absolutely loved it

If you know someone that loved Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train then this is certainly the book for them. This was a holiday read for me a few months back and it really gripped me.

If you like your thrillers pacy, intriguing and well handled, then The Woman in Cabin 10is a good option… A catchy, captivating mystery.

Moshfegh’s writings stands out in several spectacular ways... In detail and texture the world she creates is unsettlingly vivid: a considerable achievement for a writer born so long after the era she depicts…. Eileen's anger and frustration dominate her story, helping to create a seamless mood of menace... Moshfegh's debut novel is set to attain classic status within the thriller genre.

An impressive character study full of subtle nuances, shrouded in mystery.

Eileen is an accomplished, disturbing and creepily funny first novel… Moshfegh’s control of tone and pace is masterly, her ventriloquism impeccable, and the period detail unobtrusively spot-on. I was occasionally reminded of Nabokov and Lena Dunham, among others, but her voice is her own, and immensely promising.

Moshfegh’s fine, clear, short sentences carry complex thought and emotional revelation effortlessly.

Moshfegh’s boldness is admirable.

Moshfegh is a rising star… Eileen, her expertly paced debut novel concerns a dowdy prison clerk who lives with her gin-soaked father… Moshfegh delivers a thumping finish, leaving the reader dumbstruck by her sly, wicked storytelling genius.

A conspicuous nomination as a new voice. The cult following Moshfegh has amassed in only four short years, with steady championing by the Paris Review.

It reminded me of Lolita... Dark and fierce.

Moshfegh is, without a doubt, a very, very good writer… There’s lots of these wonderful moments. Moshfegh’s writing is at its most compelling and chilling when she delicately and intricately weaves the most finely spun…of spiders webs around her readers head… Eileen is a pretty brilliant debut novel.

Moshfegh’s exploration of deep and lasting emotional damage is quite brilliant.

A dazzling, original novel with nourish flourishes voiced by a wickedly sardonic narrator’

The Man Booker shortlist has just been announced… Our favourite is Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh.

The character of Eileen is fascinating and Moshfegh’s creation is the reason this has made the longlist. Naive, unpredictable and able to elicit responses from sympathy to revulsion from the reader but throughout you will her to get her life back on track and escape both the prison she works in and the one she has created for herself. I would be very happy to see this on the shortlist.

This is eerie, Hitchcockian and refreshingly original.

Sex, death, revenge and abuse run like dark currents beneath every page and come together in a brilliantly sustained denouement in which all the novel’s motifs…cohere and resonate.

A striking and ingenious work… She elevates Eileen from mediocrity to magnificence, in a feat that is nothing short of miraculous… The mark of reading a true master of suspense… Demands to be reread… At once chilling, ambitious and unexpected, Eileen is undoubtedly deserving of its Booker Prize nomination, and, dare I say it, of a win.

[It is] gripping… The writing is brilliant.

A very dark, morbid tale… I loved it, because it’s a really original voice that draws you into a dark psychology.

A clever, eloquent and captivating debut novel.

[It is] thrillingly playful.

The most grimly compelling fiction came from a new voice: Ottessa Moshfegh’s Man Booker-shortlisted Eileen. It takes nerve to create such a thoroughly dislikeable narrator… It is like someone reaching into a bottomless bag of gifts.

I loved its refreshingly dark and complicated protagonist and grubbily vivid sense of time and place. Eileen reads like a smart, feminist take on Hitchcock or Highsmith and was, for that reason, impossible to put down.

[Eileenis] compulsively deviant and utterly delicious… I savoured every single word of it.