This deliciously horrific Australian thriller, set in 1900, could be seen as an anti-picnic cautionary tale.

Written in a beautifully haunting style that drew me in.

A sinister tale...laced with touches of other-worldliness

A fantasia with a hard brilliant core.

A fine crime writer ... in a vein of sheer toughness very much his own.

Action-packed and authentic in every detail, it gives us a hero who's at least as scary as the villains. Andy McNab is the real deal and a rare commodity - a hard guy who knows how to write

Twists and turns you never see coming... I am but one of a steadily growing group of loyal fans

Liza Marklund is in a league of her own

Plenty of politics, high and low and the portrayal of college life and vicious, teeming with sycophants and thick with double dealing

Pears brings to life a vibrant 17th-century world...a tour de force

Crammed with period detail, it's as much a novel of ideas as it is of character