Author:Natsuo Kirino
In a suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls drift through a hot smoggy August and tedious summer school classes. There's dependable Toshi; brainy Terauchi; Yuzan, grief-stricken and confused; and Kirarin, whose late nights and reckless behaviour remain a secret from those around her.
Then Toshi's next-door neighbour is found brutally murdered and the girls suspect Worm, the neighbour's son and a high school misfit. But when he disappears (taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him) the four girls become irresistibly drawn into a treacherous vortex of brutality and seduction which rises from within themselves as well as the world around them.
Kirino uses her considerable narrative gifts to evoke the tedium, pressure and angst her teenage characters suffer
—— Publishers WeeklyKirino creates a fictional universe in which the normal rules of engagement no longer apply...she chronicles the toxic fall out of an educational system that fosters conformity above individualism
—— Emma Hagestadt , IndependentJapanese crime queen ... a tense, worried book of actions and consequences
—— GuardianShe may be the best crime writer to emerge from Japan in years
—— Independent on SundayThe translation is smooth and invisible... Compelling
—— www.eurocrime.co.ukJames Patterson is The Boss. End of.
—— IAN RANKIN, bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus seriesI wrote, "Along Came a Spider is the best thriller I've come across in many a year. It deserves to be this season's no. 1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name." A household name, indeed.
—— NELSON DEMILLEEvery once in a while a writer comes along and fundamentally changes the way people read. He or she is so bright, so innovative, so industrious that what they envision and create becomes the measure by which all others are judged. In 1993 one such writer - James Patterson - began to do just that ... James Patterson is the gold standard by which all others are judged.
—— STEVE BERRY, bestselling author of the Colton Malone series[Alex Cross] has become one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time, a character for the ages.
—— DOUGLAS PRESTON and LINCOLN CHILDAlex Cross is a legend.
—— HARLAN COBENPatterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It's what fires off the movie projector in the reader's mind.
—— MICHAEL CONNELLYPatterson knows where our deepest fears are buried... there's no stopping his imagination.
—— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWPatterson is in a class by himself.
—— VANITY FAIR... opens with one of the most chilling murder scenes I've read in a long time ... High-octane stuff
—— Daily ExpressI was completely swept along by it. It was absolutely fantastic: I romped through it. It is wonderfully-well and scarily described. There is a James Bond quality. It was inspired. Cross Country has an amazing sense of speed, there's a really brilliant tension in the plot. You really believe in Alex Cross.
You're just completely engrossed in it from start to finish. Absolutely incredible. Taking [Cross] into Africa is a masterstroke. The story is unrelentingly exciting.