'Makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up'

'We can only marvel at the rumbling undertone of dread that Steinhauer builds around what appears to be a routine investigation of a suicide but turns out to be just the tip of a murderous political conspiracy'

'Steinhauer successfully conjures up the grey, dehumanised world of a nascent communist state, which provides a suitably chilling backdrop to his hero's quest to unearth a secret that threatens to ruin the lives of many'

'Good enough to suggest comparison with Graham Greene: places the author in the forefront of contemporary suspense writers'

'Chock full of military fat to chew on...will keep you awake until dawn'

'A rollicking, feel-good adventure set among the murky and convulsive politics of the present-day Middle East'

'An exciting page-turner...unusual and intriguing'

'It is not unusual for the Western detective story to be transported into Far Eastern surroundings. But it is the rare novel that offers a seductive and engaging local protagonist of such a story, penned by an Easterner. This does both with resounding success, as well as adding a dimension not typically found in the genre'

'Impeccably researched, this is sometimes poetic, often exotic and totally hardcore'

'Wow! Partly 'normal' thriller and partly off-the-beaten-track Buddhist narrative ... An original and gripping novel'

'John Burdett is purely and simply a wonderful writer, a genuine grown-up at work in a genre mostly populated by arrested adolescents...Bangkok 8 is a tour de force'

'To say that Bangkok 8 in set in Bangkok is an understatement: it is suffused with the cooking smells, mired in the traffic jams and entangled in the bare limbs of the sex workers... not that the novel is slow going. Bangkok 8 goes from 0 to 60 in about 10 pages'

'Like a modern-day Indiana Jones adventure written by Evelyn Waugh...One of this season's cleverest and most stylish entertainments'

'Engaging, warm, humorous and poignant at the same time'

'This book is amazing . . . A must read'