Ellroy writes as if driven by demons. His brutal, staccato graffiti tips over into art

No emotion is spared; the writing is sparse, the plotting controlled. Not for the faint of heart, this is a big, powerful crime novel and possibly the first important example of the genre in the 1990s

Empty of any unessentials and full of wise-cracking wit

Unputdownable

[Leon] is a master at weaselling her way into the venal byways of human selfishness and laying them bare. ... There's a quietness to the crimes here that is more powerful than outlandish violence, and which points to the philosophical bedrock from which Leon so effectively works.

A compelling mystery... I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an intelligent page turner

In addition to creating a cleverly calibrated and creepy murder mystery, Dymott has also fashioned a neatly tailored exploration of the desperate psychology of loss... This is a cunning, sharp first novel that revels in keeping one in the dark

Wholly absorbing

Wonderfully unique

It’s rare to feel so completely inside someone’s head

Elanor Dymott's arresting debut...combines the pleasures of a thriller with an elegiac meditation on the trials of youth

A dark clever campus novel that draws the reader into a skilfully woven web of half-told stories... Crafted and elegantly written

Dymott’s capacity to conjure striking imagery is exceptional. This is more than a murder mystery. It’s an examination of the subjectivity of accounts of truth. It’s a desperately moving love story about a lonely man who finds salvation in another only to have his idyll destroyed. It's a tale of revenge, served cold and deadly

This is a love story, told in reverse, a haunting tale of youth and lost love, and a poetical thriller.A powerful debut and a distinctive voice

Elanor Dymott’s gorgeous debut novel is a murder mystery that’s also a brilliant meditation on love and memory and loss. Like the Robert Browning poems her characters read at Oxford, the book is spooky, lovesick, dark, and lush, its narrator circling obsessively back on the death at its heart

An irresistible blast of an opening which never disappoints in a journey into a complex knot of intense and ultimately destructive relationships from which the murder that is the dark core ofThis excellent debut novel distills

A beautiful, lucid nightmare of a book. A mystery of love and murder that is elegantly written, disturbing, always compelling, and lingers long in the mind

A literary thriller wrapped up in a whodunit love story, Elanor Dymott's debut makes for compulsive reading. The complexity of the plot put me in mind of The Secret History;
it deserves to reach just as wide an audience

Every Contact Leaves a Trace is beautifully paced, from the graphic event at its start through all its shifting possibilities to its strange, logical conclusion. It is a marvelous book

Erudite debut

This murder mystery...gripped me with unusual force... This novel sucks you in beautifully, and will not let you go

This is a class act which unveils its secrets as tantalisingly as a courtesan

Wonderfully evocative of Oxford, this is a love story and a mystery that will keep you guessing

Part love story, part murder mystery… Dymott’s novel is ample proof of the literary flair that lurks within some lawyers

One of the best books I’ve read this year