As fresh and brisk as ever ... a feast to be wallowed in.

Deighton's outstanding achievement is the nine-volume series chronicling the life and times of Bernard Samson ... Deighton's Samson trilogies are as much about the elusiveness of human interactions as espionage. Spying is not a secret world sealed off from ordinary life but an extension of the world we all live in.

For sheer readability he has no peer.

Like lying back in a hot bath with a large malt whisky - absolute bliss.

Paula Hawkins's plotting is meticulous. A Slow Fire Burning is a clever onion of a book, expertly peeled.

Dark and disturbing, this twisted story with its cast of damaged characters builds to a brilliant conclusion. This one will stay with you for a long time.

Gripping and intriguing, I loved every moment of A Slow Fire Burning. Hawkins goes from strength to strength.

An unflinching look at the damage sparked by grief, loss and betrayal - and the revenge and retribution that ensues. Compelling and intricately plotted, it was its flawed and utterly credible women, and the warmth and wit of their irreverent voices, that I loved the most.

A new Paula Hawkins novel is always a cause for celebration. Her books have all the pleasing twists of the noir genre while at the same time having something to say that feels real and complex and true - her women characters feel like someone you actually know.

A Slow Fire Burning is a hugely gripping, character-based thriller, with great writing and brilliant twists. Highly recommended.

A Slow Fire Burning absolutely held me with its compelling, multi-generational cast of women and the brilliantly evoked pathos of damaged lives.

I inhaled this novel, a gripping exploration of the damage that secrets can do, Hawkins' writing draws you in from the first word and refuses to let you go until the last.

A Slow Fire Burning is Paula Hawkins at her best. Here are characters you want to spend time with, living in a world you believe in, and caught up in a plot that holds you in its grip. A thrilling read.

A truly satisfying, multi-layered maze of a mystery with a cast of flawed characters so real I'm still thinking of them days after I turned the last page.

I don't know if this isn't Paula Hawkins' best novel yet. A Slow Fire Burning is superb

I loved A Slow Fire Burning. The ingenious beginning snared me and I was held by the subtly powerful plot, such a difficult thing to do well and here, seemingly effortless. The characters were deliciously complex and utterly authentic and that is what has stayed with me the longest - their voices, their fragility, their distinct stories.

A Slow Fire Burning is a hugely satisfying, brilliantly crafted novel about the entanglement of betrayal and retaliation, the damage of loss, and how tragedy reverberates in ways we can never expect. Wickedly dark and gorgeously written, this is a novel you'll be thinking about long after the last delicious pages. Paula Hawkins is masterful.

Tense, suspenseful and wholly surprising . . . you won't be able to put it down.

The queen of the psychological thriller is back with her best book yet. It's such an addictive read . . . an absolute must-read

The kind of book that stays with you for days after . . . cleverly plotted, powerful, unputdownable and sure to be another global hit.

A treat: utterly readable, moving in parts and saturated with the kind of localised detail that made The Girl on the Train so compelling . . . [It] will be seen, rightly, as a return to form; a London book from an excellent writer on London, and a tender portrait of characters that stay in the mind long after you've finished reading.

Harks back to peak-period Barbara Vine with its beautifully drawn characters and its offbeat London setting . . . This is a subtle, haunting thriller with many twists.

Superbly told, its twists and turns reveal the slow fire burning inside each which might just destroy them. Utterly compelling.

Very cunningly structured . . . gets under the skin of a range of interesting characters.

An excellent page-turner to take on holiday

Fast-paced, highly charged and carried off with so much confidence that it is impossible to resist.

An engrossing account of trauma, at the centre are three women driven by loss, secrets and revenge.

A firecracker of a read full of unreliable narrators and big twists!

Paula's best work yet, a thoughtful, poignant interrogation of the sad, messy complicated business of human life

A multi-layered mystery, simmering with secrets, resentments and grief

Compelling and challenging, A Slow Fire Burning explores the damage caused by betrayal and loss, and how this can manifest in disturbing acts of revenge and retribution. The author's first novel for four years is worth the wait and certain to cement her status as a publishing phenomenon.

Shocking, moving, full of heart ... deeply layered and intricately plotted ... A Slow Fire Burning shows a writer at the height of her powers

This tense and irresistible read is best binged in one sitting

Intricately interwoven plots and subplots, propulsive twists and a neat finale, a deliciously easy psycho drama to hungrily tear through.

A brilliant read

A psychological thriller that begins with a death on a canal boat and involves a cadre of shifty, damaged characters.

A multi-layered mystery simmering with secrets, resentments and griefs.