I recommend Forester to every literate I know

I find Hornblower admirable, vastly entertaining

One of the best. Everyone interested in war, or in human nature, should read

Absolutely compelling. One of the great masters of narrative

A master of the genre

Hellbent is Gregg Hurwitz firing on all cylinders

Praise for Orphan X

Orphan X blows the doors off most thrillers I've read and catapults the readers on a cat-and-mouse that feels like a missile launch. Read this book. You will thank me later

Orphan X is his best yet - a real celebration of all the strengths Gregg Hurwitz brings to a thriller

Orphan X is the most gripping, high-octane thriller I've read in a long, long time!

Orphan X is most exciting new series character since Jack Reacher. A page-turning masterpiece of suspense

Mind blowing! A perfect mix of Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher

Orphan X is the most exciting thriller I've read since The Bourne Identity ... A new thriller superstar is born!

Orphan X is not good. Orphan X is great. Whatever you like best in a thriller - action, plot, character, suspense - Orphan X has it

A new series character to rival Reacher . . . anyone reading Orphan X won't be surprised that a cadre of peers, from Tess Gerritsen to Lee Child, have lined up to praise it

Bestseller Hurwitz melds non-stop action and high-tech gadgetry with an acute character study in this excellent series opener . . . Evan Smoak is an electrifying character

In terms of plot, characters, suspense and innovation, Orphan X is outstanding . . . I've always thought that one reason for Tom Clancy's success was the endless detail he provided about military hardware, and that the James Bond novels benefited from the loving attention Ian Fleming devoted to the martinis, expensive cars and gorgeous women he so admired. Hurwitz outdoes both writers . . . Orphan X is a smart, stylish, state-of-the-art thriller. It's also the start of a series, one that might give Lee Child's Jack Reacher books a run for their money

A masterpiece of suspense and thrills . . . Turn off the real world and dive into this amazing start to a new series

Brian Van Reet's beautiful, intense, and at times disturbing novel Spoils traces the motivations and desires of combatants on both sides of the Iraq War, showing us what happens when increasing violence and chaos start to warp the choices they're able to make.

Moving immediately into the pantheon of first-rate war novels, Spoils reads like a nightmare within a tragedy, a story that is both touchingly classic and brutally modern, This is a definitive record of the war that marked the end of the American Empire. One of the best novels of our time in the Middle East.

With Spoils Brian Van Reet has given readers an intensely moving novel. That it is also a nearly comprehensive examination of our modern wars is a remarkable demonstration of both the power and relevance of fiction.

In recent years there have been a number of very good novels by veterans of the Global War on Terror. None is as ambitious, inclusive or powerful as Brian Van Reet's Spoils; none has this novel's range or uncanny ability to transport the reader to the battlefield and those rarely explored margins at the battlefield's ragged edge. Spoils is a fantastic debut.

Vivid and fierce, Spoils is an eloquent exploration of humanity. Depicting a world with no obvious villains or heroes, this novel is as important as it is timely. By exploring the nuances of motivation, loyalty, and sacrifice, Van Reet exposes the connections that bind us across even the greatest divides.

The brilliance of Brian Van Reet’s Spoils lies not only in the sheer forward-motion velocity of its plotting, but in the psychological terrain it explores: what a generation of young women and men went looking for in Iraq, what they found, and why that discovery matters so profoundly for the rest of us.

In Spoils, Van Reet has imbued his subject with subtlety — something that it is so often stripped of, both by combatants and the media. One rarely sees a war novel by a soldier with such convincing writing on both sides of the trenches.

This is a great novel… Brian Van Reet [is] a special talent.

An honest glimpse into the action, emotion and futility of war.

The action is realistic and relentless, the writing lean and muscular, the tale harrowing, and the horrors seemingly inevitable but no less powerful for that.

In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines… Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat.

Spoils reeks of the fog and futility of war… It has its own blue-collar beauty as it tells its tale from three perspectives: a gay, female US soldier, an Egyptian jihadist and a US tank commander.

Brian Van Reet has firsthand combat experience to draw upon for this powerful piece of fiction, rendering it an intensely humane story, giving credible authenticity to the plot, and scenes presented to the reader… Enlightening, thought provoking and hauntingly mesmerising, I cannot recommend Spoils highly enough to anyone interested in novels about war and conflict.

Every page brims with brutal authenticity.

Spoils bears eye-widening witness to valour, horror, violence, cruelty and absurdity.