Captured

"Fantastically clever stories expertly told by a very skilful writer" CHRIS CARTER 'With every book Neil Cross's prose grows leaner and more charged... rachet[s] up tension and keep[s] us on his side way past the point where that's a morally acceptable place to be. Cross is a wonderful writer, full of mordant psychological insights... Britain's own Stephen King' John O'Connell, the Guardian 'Once again, Neil Cross proves that he's not just a master of suspense, but horror too... His novels, however, have just been getting better and better as he appears to have found a deceptively simple yet highly-charged and convincing style' Mirror, Book of the Week 'A psychological thriller for which the term 'page-turner' might have been coined' Metro 'Gory detail and lifelike descriptions paint a stark picture of the life of portrait artist Kenny Drummond. A testimony of the human spirit's ability to bear pain and even the respect and love he can feel for his sworn enemy, Captured is gripping stuff' The Northern Echo 'Neil Cross' latest masterpiece of suspense... The reader is led in a rush through a beautifully constructed story that Cross whips along with great speed and ever-rising tension' Material Witness 'Original and thoughtful, a psychological thriller sharing some common ground with Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine... the deft plot has an inescapable gravity' TLS 'The writer Cross most closely resembles is Patricia Highsmith... gripping' Uncut 'Gripping stuff' The Scotsman 'Original and thoughtful... The events are grotesque and terrible, while the deft plot has an inescapable gravity. None of this would be nearly so interesting without the complex ordinariness of the characters... The West Country setting is used to good effect as an everyday terrain through which the characters move with increasing desperation. Captured gives off an impression of power held in reserve, and it serves an authentic, unsparing vision of goodwill undone by misfortune' TLS 'It won't take you more than two or three sittings to read Neil Cross's eighth novel, a psychological thriller for which the term 'page-turner' might have been coined...the suspense-laden tale...certainly thrills' Metro 'Cross's clear, precise style makes for a compelling, read-in-one-sitting thriller. Yet there is more to this novel -- brooding questions of morality, mortality and responsibility, giving it more dimensions' Word magazine 'Cross has a knack for telling a simple tale with strongly etched characters, keeping the tension taut as sympathies switch, and throwing in enough twists to keep the reader on tenterhooks' Adelaide Advertiser 'Cross' work is generally very scabrous stuff indeed: blood-boltered, hard-edged and sardonically funny... As in the earlier Burial and Mr In-Between, Cross demonstrates a willingness to plunge into those areas other thriller writers shy away from; while the surface of the book has all the disturbing filigrees one might expect, this book (like its predecessors) is very much a novel of character' Barry Forshaw, Crime Time