“An intense adrenalin rush from start to finish, I read The Laughterhouse in one sitting. It’ll have you up all night. Fantastic!”
– S.J. Watson
“Piano wire–taut plotting, Tate’s heart-wrenching losses and forlorn hopes, and Cleave’s unusually perceptive gaze into the maw of a killer’s madness make this a standout chapter in his detective’s rocky road to redemption.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred)
“A wonderful book.... The final effect is that tingling in the neck hairs that tells us an artist is at work.”
– Booklist (starred)
“Dark, bloody, and gripping, Blood Men is classic noir fiction. In Paul Cleave, Jim Thompson has another worthy heir to his throne.”
– John Connolly
“Riveting and all too realistic."
– Tess Gerritsen
“Relentlessly gripping, deliciously twisted and shot through with a vein of humor that’s as dark as hell. Cleave creates fictional monsters as chilling and as charming as any I’ve ever come across. Anyone who likes their crime fiction on the black and bloody side should move Paul Cleave straight to the top of their must-read list.”
– Mark Billingham
“Compelling, dark, and perfectly paced, New Zealand writer Cleave’s psychological thriller explores the evil lurking in us all, working relentless magic until the very last page. There’s nary a misstep in this riveting thriller about the bad deeds even good men sometimes do.”
– Booklist
“Paul Cleave writes the kind of dark, intense thrillers that I never want to end. Do yourself a favor and check him out.”
– Simon Kernick
“A pulse-pounding serial killer thriller.... The city of Christchurch becomes a modern equivalent of James Ellroy's Los Angeles of the 1950s, a discordant symphony of violence and human weakness. Cleave tosses in a number of twists that few readers will anticipate, but the book's real power lies in the complexity of its characters, particularly the emotionally tortured Tate.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred)