Compelling, inventive and bleakly funny

Deep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino

Ma's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society

Playful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera

There's more than a whiff of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness about these tales, by turns savage, funny, unsettling

Skilful and unsettling

Mr Bones is a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Paul Theroux has observed - and ­invented

Suave and accomplished

Mr Bones showcases the author's virtuoso storytelling abilities, as he tells stories of tricky situations, slippery personalities and unsettling motives

Misfits and twisted individuals loom large throughout these urbane stories . . . satirically edged.

Paul Theroux combines the traveller's hawk eye with the novelist's keen insight. . .[he has] an uncanny ability to rivet the reader.

A masterpiece of wit and elegance.

The author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.

All the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.

Even Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.

A tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.