This attention to detail lends a satisfying completeness to the novel. Kurzweil also displays the journalists ability to explore varied subjects making this an engaging story that deftly and wittily satiates at every level.

Hail, Colleen McCullough! She once again gives Caesar his due . . . Caesar reveals Julius Caesar and the author at the height of their powers . . . With all its Machiavellian machinations and its eye for entertaining history, McCullough latest novel merits the allegiance of her legions of fans

A thoroughly Romanized epic novel . . . Her version of history marches through the tumultuous years from 54 to 48 B.C. withoutmissing any of the significant military and political landscape . . . McCullough also fleshes out the marbled-over characters of Pompey, Cato, Cicero, Brutus, Mark Anthony and others as they try to deal with the near-infallible Caesar. And Caesar himself . . . [is] brilliant, ambitious, ruthless and fascinating

Reading "Martin Sloane" made me feel melancholic, hopeful, amused, energized, enlightened, unnerved, touched, and finally grateful that occasionally a writer comes along who gets real life just right.

Redhill [has] a gift for studied lyricism, a complex kind of emotional intelligence and, most of all, a poet's understanding of the workings of time... a powerful meditation on the implications of memory and the vacancies opened up by the loss of love... Redhill paces this sad and oblique detective story with great heart and delicacy.

Redhill's mild prose is dense with powerful emotional insights. Like Martin's art, it inspires a feeling of stillness and calm, of looking down on things from above; while underneath rest layer upon layer of meaning, prompting reflection on the novel's images and understandings long after the last page is reached.

Hauntingly good.

A first novel with a rich centre... not a word to spare or an image too many.

Often intriguing... Jolene's youthful crassness and belated recognit ion or everything she lost are sharply and movingly evoked.

Its combination of Grand Guignol and place setting does command attention

Original, moving and entertaining for adults as well as for older children

A deservedly acclaimed read.