McCullough spins a stupendous tale of murderous ambition, guile, assassination, tragedy, love and lust...a magnificent tour de force

As usual, Rendell mirrors aspects of the case in the leading characters' personal lives and her cleverly understated writing bathes them and their actions in a glow of reality that sets her writing above that of her many imitators.

As always with Ruth Rendell's intricately thought-out novels, nothing is as simple as it seems.

Superb plotting and psychological insight make this another Rendell gripper

Utterly absorbing

Ruth Rendell is not only the finest crime novelist there is, but one of the finest novelists writing in the English language

Brilliantly empathetic. Believe the hype: a brilliant, heart-warming book

In telling a painful story in the voice of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's, Haddon broadens ordinary minds and helps to understand how they work, too.

Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy

I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out

Original, moving and entertaining for adults as well as for older children

A deservedly acclaimed read.