Incendiary - Tapa blanda

"A stunning debut novel...a haunting work of art." (Malcolm Jones Newsweek)

"Incendiary works not only as a furiously taut evocation of grieving, unhinged mother love but as a sly political cautionary tale...a poignant and compelling novel" (Newsday)

"The eloquence of Cleave's heroine is equal to the atrocity which claims her family. She is by turns funny, sad, flawed, sympathetic, both damaged and indomitable, and triumphantly convincing" (Lawrence Norfolk Telegraph)

"A tense and disquieting debut" (Kate Saunders Times)

"Chris Cleaves female narrator is witty and gritty, but balancing on the outside edge of sanity. A tense and disquieting debut" (The Times)

A massive terrorist attack on Arsenal's new stadium - a woman grieving for her husband and son - a unique, twisted powerhouse of a novel.

Angry, funny, heart-rending and subversive, few first novels are as compelling as this one. From the first sentence of her open letter to Osama Bin Laden, Incendiary's unforgettable narrator won't let you go, and her cry of raw outrage at the murder of her family rapidly develops into something very unexpected. Part thriller, part satire, part memorial to a dead child, it shows us an East End woman trying every way she can to climb out of despair, and a society in the grip of fear and self-interest. It is a story in which everyone is compromised - where personal betrayals reflect national ones, and Britain's class system is a ticking bomb.

Shocking but tender, brutal yet hopeful, Incendiary forces us to see what we'd rather not see, yet never fails to entertain. The writing moves from horror to humour with terrifying ease. The power of the storytelling is mesmerising. Few writers have pinned a generation down on the mat like this and refused to allow it up till it admits it's rotten.