One of the greats of modern crime fiction.

The undisputed King of the Icelandic Thriller.

An international literary phenomenon - and it's easy to see why. His novels are gripping, authentic, haunting and lyrical.

A tragic tale of football, fathers and fear'

Takes my breath away

Brilliant and compulsive

A haunting, compelling, and brilliant piece of fiction ... Packed with literary allusion and told with a sophistication and texture that owes much more to the nineteenth century than to the twentieth

A compelling tale of power, cover-ups and idealism.

Many readers prize him as our supreme exponent of the “literary” thriller. His novels are not difficult – they are whizzing page-turners… They also combine masterly suspense and mystery with historical insight and political shrewdness. His latest novel is no exception: it is a cracking read from start to finish… It offers a bravura display of Harris’s fictional skills. The first is sureness of historical touch. In both general and specific terms the period comes alive… There is no need to wait for the film: it can scarcely be more exciting than the book.

Harris is committed to the belief that you can get at a truth as a novelist that you can’t as an historian… and he does give us the look, sensations, sounds and smells as no historian could… it is informative, accomplished and highly enjoyable

The Dreyfus Affair… has now been brilliantly retold by Robert Harris… This is a book about spies and their deceits and the unreasonable demands that are made of them by their hard-to-please political governors. It is 1895 with a strong undercurrent of 2003… The real subject then is espionage and the broader, mutually manipulative relationship between the intelligence “community” and the political class… Along the way, Harris gives us plenty of espionage tradecraft. The eavesdropping, the handwriting analysis, the forgery.

The story is a gift to any novelist fascinated by the murkier aspects of politics – and Robert Harris takes full advantage, serving up a perfect read for those who like their literary thrills to come with some immaculately researched history… the tension is cranked up further with every agonising twist.

Robert Harris who pulls out a surprise with each new novel, has turned to this political scandal which “came to obsess France and ultimately the entire world”… None of the characters is entirely fictional, promises the author’s note. Therein lies the only difficulty with this taut thriller, as the reader wonders how much is history and how much is Harris.

The story charges along at full throttle, in a vibrant account adorned with masterly detail

Immaculately researched but delivered with such a deft touch that it never feels like a history lesson…superlative.

Harris lightly fictionalizes the historical narrative of the anti-semetic persecution of Alfred Dreyfus - brilliantly retold.

Gripping from beginning to end

'informative, accomplished and highly enjoyable.

An Officer and a Spy is written in elegant prose reminiscent of the 19th-century historical novel, but its form is a hybrid of the contemporary thriller, the spy novel and the courtroom drama. It is persuasive and engaging on all of these levels, while providing a unique and fresh reading of the Dreyfus Affair. It’s also timely, serving as a warning against religious bigotry and groupthink.

People who have read my fiction reviews in this paper will be familiar with my assertion that the glory of imaginative literature rests in its ability to make the reader think and feel at the same time. This marvellous novel does just that. It may well be the best book Robert Harris has yet written - and that’s saying something.

Harris’s gift for breathing life into historical characters is on full display in this brilliant fictionalisation of L’affair Dreyfus.

It is tantalising to speculate on what liberties an author has taken when fictionalising a true story but the facts of the Dreyfus Affair are so incredible that Harris has no need to embellish. He fashions an enthralling frame and lets the astonishing tale unfold.

The choice of narrator is sure-footed. Georges Picquart makes a fascinatingly ambiguous figure around whom to anchor this tale of moral absolutes.

A compelling narrative.

Robert Harris is the master of the political thriller and his latest finds him in fine form.

Both gripping thriller and Buchanesque adventure: its revelations impeccably paced and its original material used to poignant effect… An Officer and a Spy is carried throughout by the peerless characterisation of Picquart… But most of all it is the honest, implacable soldier’s dawning realisation that the institutions in which he has placed his faith are appallingly corrupt that has the most tenacious hold on the reader. It still has power to shock – and it leaves us in no doubt as to an old story’s continuing resonance.

An event that obsessed France and the world is retold here, in forensic detail, with great clarity and humanity.

I have just had a preview copy of Robert Harris’s new novel An Officer and a Spy, a thriller based on the Dreyfus case. Like John le Carré, Harris is interested in rogue intelligence, corrupted by politics. Unlike le Carré he does not lay it on too thick. The story of Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer convicted in France for spying for the Germans then exonerated, is one of history’s great political dramas. Harris backs the power of argument and reason. Politicians reportedly took Charles Moore’s Thatcher biography with them on holiday. Harris’s thriller would be perfect for the trip home.’

Mock-gothic variant on Frankenstein relates what happens when a computer programme goes rogue and ravages the money market. Suspense and satire combine in a book that is as up to the minute as a news flash.

If you didn’t catch it in hardback, grab it now in austerity-Britain paperback. Harris’s latest bestseller is a gripping, funny and timely tale of money – losing it or, more terrifyingly here, making too much of it… A high-speed plot, deft characterisation… and Harris even manages to explain what a hedge fund is.

Populist fiction at its best.

I would recommend The Fear Index. The writing is as elegant as ever.

Harris writes with a deceptively languid elegance, so that the novel straddles not only the crime and sci-fi genres but also that of literary fiction. A satisfying read on a number of levels, it is strongest as a character study of a man who discovers, pace Hemingway, the true meaning of the phrase "grace under pressure".

The Fear Index is a frightening book, of course, as, with its title, it intends. Harris has an excellent sense of pace, and understands as much about fear in literature as Hoffman does in markets.

Like Frankenstein, his novel is a tale of the catastrophic consequences of galvanising inanimate matter into uncontrollable life . . . The Fear Index is both cutting edge and keenly conscious of its literary predecessors. Reworking classic texts is a large-scale literary industry these days. Harris's tongue-in-cheek flesh-creeper (whose most chilling moments are its reminders of our present financial woes) is a virtuoso specimen of it.

Harris is a master of pace and entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book . . . Read the book. If I die tomorrow, blame the computer.

A nail-biting listen - the financial world has never seemed so thrilling - beautifully read by Phillip Franks

There is a cool edge to Franks' voice as he tracks Alex's surging paranoia to a blockbuster climax

How would society respond to the inexplicable? This is the question the author tries, with intelligence, elegance and humour, to answer. Hervé le Tellier has written a frank and gripping novel with complex, moving characters. You won't be able to put it down!

Effervescent playfulness . . . Hilariously deadpan

The novel is a tour de force which both dives into the personal lives of several characters and at the same time gives a group perspective on an international event which verges on science fiction. The taut rhythm of the investigation keeps the reader on tenterhooks

The situations are mad, but the questions they raise, far less so. Such is the profundity of this astonishing book: it makes light of itself, lending an air of fantasy to the fates of its characters, while Hervé le Tellier holds a mirror up before us

A master of one-touch characterisation. Le Tellier's genius is in making the unimaginable feel authentic

Le Tellier, throughout this flight, deposits on the tarmac his stunned reader, ready to applaud

Le Tellier is a masterful writer and his staggering story verges on thriller and science fiction

Somewhere between fable and science fiction, it's a fascinating novel

The novel weaves a surprising story out of several narrative threads which give Hervé le Tellier the opportunity to touch on as many literary genres as he does themes, in a biting and often funny critique of the start of the 21st century

Excellent...at once zeitgeisty, intelligent, and entertaining

Fantastic...The Anomaly wears its name well: it's rare in France that a work combines the best of American TV series with an impeccable mastery of the French psychological novel

Dizzying, compelling

Mind-bending. Herve Le Tellier's emotional and intellectual rollercoaster is well worth the ride

A delightfully confounding thriller . . . Le Tellier's prose is beautifully efficient and capable of quiet devastation