Few are able to take language closer to life than Kristine Næss, she is one of the very best authors of our generation

Disciplined, fraughtly tense… It is a dark, claustrophobic examination of three women in varying states of despairing anxiety… This is a dense work of uncomfortable honesty

Only Human combines a crime mystery from the media with original portraits of women in three generations ... three highly individual and yet interconnected stories, which together gives us a surprisingly multidimensional view at the lives we live and how we emerge as people for one another

The premise is a stroke of genius. Roland Barthes did not die following an accident in 1980; he was murdered… The strands of the plot are skilfully interwoven through a dual process of fictionalisation of the real and realisation of the fictional

An almost filmic detective romp, taking in glamorous international locations, killer dogs, Bulgarian secret agents, several varieties of sex and wild car chases

A smart spoof thriller, cheekily taking as its cat the most famous Parisian intellectuals in the scene in 1980… It’s all fun and games, ever so clever, and highly self-congratulatory for those of us who wasted years studying the abstruse and ultimately worthless theories of these French thinkers

Laurent Binet is possessed of something like Superman’s X-ray vision combined with a million lasers. When he gets something in his sights, that thing is dead. And what he kills in his new novel is literary theory, in all its fake unuseful stupidity…. Reading Binet gives you that rare pleasure of feeling that you’re losing your grip on reality… What Binet can do with a scene, a paragraph, is beyond belief… One suspects Binet will make, or perhaps already has made, a lot of enemies with his jaw-droppingly disrespectful, extremely witty and – yes – heartfelt book. But one thing’s for sure, he’ll know how to handle them

Incredibly timely ... very entertaining, like a dirty Midnight in Paris for the po-mo set

On one level it’s a nostalgic look at a period in which French thinkers spent less time brooding on national identity… And on another it’s an exercise in pure intellectual slapstick of the kind that French humourists do well… It’s possible that his novel shares a few shreds of DNA with Zoolander

A playful conspiracy thriller.

[A] global conspiracy thriller involving French philosopher Roland Barthes and a deadly new language.

The writing is subtly done and the pages are turning and the intrigue grows. As does the smile – the language is entertaining

A rollicking crime caper about the death of Roland Barthes. It had me rolling on the floor of the Paris Metro when I read it.

Admirably ambitious romp of a thing that reads like a thinking-man's Da Vinci Code, if such a thing were ever conceivable… This is hugely entertaining, laugh-out-loud stuff

It’s a rollicking ride, with Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva and a preening Bernard Henri-Lévy popping up to have their say… I dare you to read it and not hum the Pink Panther theme throughout

Yes, structuralism and semiotics feature prominently, but never in an alienating way – if anything, it’s a playful introduction to critical theory. And it’s great to see behemoths of the French philosophical establishment like Foucault and Lacan taken down a peg or two in some downright feral cameos

Laurent Binet’s The 7th Function of Language…was the most outrageously entertaining novel of the year, a defamatory fantasy about the supposed secret lives of eminent post-structuralists. A joy

A conspiracy thriller about the death of the French literary theorist, Roland Barthes, that draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Dan Brown with tongue firmly in cheek—to hilarious effect.

A hoot from start to finish.

Fast paced and awe inspiring... [with] a thunderous ending'

The lines between right and wring, moral and immoral were blurred and I never knew what the characters would do next ... Clever and shocking, a fantastic psychological thriller.

A compelling read ... an excellent novel and the plotting is top-notch.

Very different from every other psychological thriller I have read ... the perfect book for a book club

Full of tension, questions, secrets and lies... a spectacular finish with fireworks and an unbelievable turn

A gripping and meaty book ... a must read for anyone who loves a domestic psychological thriller.

A terrific book - compelling and exquisitely told by an author with exceptional talent

A great read with an astonishing twist

Goes straight on the shelf marked 'unputdownable'... scenes of great beauty and moments of great drama ... a splendid debut.

A great thing to read

A fast-paced mystery thriller ... Thanks to Cotterell's convincing characters, you'll find yourself questioning right and wrong, and how far a woman should go to protect her family.

All I can say is WOW! If you are a fan of the psychological thriller genre, then this needs to go on your 'must get' list... Excellent.