RaveEvening Standard (UK)The book is full of pitch black humour with Alice’s constant commentary on her fellow patients and her glee at being able to flex her old detective muscles providing some unexpected laugh out loud moments. But as in the story of her name sake, who ended up in Wonderland, there is a dark thread running through the book not least in the individual sad stories that left the patients locked away. The result is a surprisingly funny book that also has plenty to say on the serious subject of how mental health is treated in this country and where it meets the law ... Rabbit Hole is a bracing lesson in the human price paid for violent crime whose ripples reach out and destroy lives far beyond the immediate victim ... As a reader you might not trust Alice, but I guarantee you will enjoy her company.
Richard Osman
PositiveEvening Standard (UK)There is is not much more to the plot, which has more holes than a dodgy knitting pattern and his characters - aside from Elizabeth and her sidekick Joyce - are pretty flimsy. Indeed, the money laundering criminal mastermind at the heart of it all is so nondescript he is either a comment on the banality of evil or just proof Osman’s characters need work. But despite the gripes, I read it from cover to cover and enjoyed every minute ... Critics are meant to pick holes, but most readers won’t care and will be happy to be swept along on a tide of good humour, good will, some cracking one-liners and in places a genuinely touching look at how our society treats old people ... As a reviewer I can find plenty of faults, but as a reader I didn’t care - and I suspect millions of other won’t either. They’ll be delighted to be back with Elizabeth and the gang.
Stephen King
MixedEvening Standard (UK)The plot of his latest novel, the tale of an Iraq war veteran turned hitman, takes such an unexpected turn halfway through you could argue [King] has become too prolific for his own good and produced two novels that just happen to share the same title ... It’s brilliantly set up, as the solitary killer becomes part of the community, with backyard barbecues and friendly neighbours mixed with meetings with the organised crime boss who paid for his finger on the trigger ... The unexpected arrival changes Billy and the book completely as his life—and the plot—becomes more complicated, but the unlikely pairing of the self-aware killer and the innocent victim never quite convinces, and the story drifts towards an uneasy conclusion. King devotees will be delighted by the uneasy mix of dark crime and a classic odd couple American road trip, but I can’t help feeling the author took his eye off the target just as he let Billy hit his.
James Patterson
MixedThe Evening Standard (UK)It is a straight-forward action adventure that would have made for a tight little 300-page thriller, and I can’t help but wonder if the super-sized story is a side product of having two authors ... That lack of tension is a problem, but the plot rattles along entertainingly enough and the introduction of a minor character - a Chinese spy playing both sides against each other - brings a few complications to a story that is otherwise just a little too straightforward ... Bizarrely, given Clinton’s input, there is precious little politics in the book - and what there is never really rises above the cliché of the Washington insider playing political games with life or death decisions in the White House ... Cynics would say Patterson has only taken on the former President to boost his sales, but given he can happily shift millions of books on his own I’m not sure he needs him. Maybe he should dump his running mate and get back to working solo?
