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"The best since his extraordinary debut, Underground...
Few contemporary writers have so powerfully evoked the sheer bloody menace of our capital city."
- GQ magazine, June '95
"A narrative rich enough to qualify as good literature of any ilk."
- A Shot In The dark, Sept '94
"Quirky enough to make you sit up and take notice."
- Literary Review, October '94
"One of fiction's most rococco tough guys."
- Guardian, October '94
"Who says Brits can't write true hardboiled? This guy is good!
James makes it all come starkly alive, dangerous and fascinating...
Someone to watch."
- Gary Lovis, Editor, Hardboiled magazine, March '95
"If you savor the hard-boiled crime novel the way a wine connoisseur lingers over the aroma and first sip of a deliciously rare vintage, it would be a pity to bypass Slaughter Music. Russell James, an Englishman, first enticed US readers with the tough realism of Payback (1993), and now delivers a worthy successor steeped in bloody violence, Machiavellian intrigue and intricate psychological suspense."
- Michael Davis in Mostly Murder, June '95
'An original and innovative voice in the too-cosy world of crime fiction'
......Mike Ripley in the Daily Telegraph
'An unholy cross between Len Deighton and the great American noir novelist David Goodis'
......Jon Williams in The Face
'James has carved out a unique voice for himself and is rapidly becoming established as one of the leading hard-boiled British writers'
......'Britcrit' in Mystery Scene
'Something of a cult...He goes looking for trouble where more circumspect writers would back off''
......Chris Petit in The Times Saturday Review
'A feeling of here and now that's rare in most British crime fiction'
......Philip Oakes in Literary Review
'A first-class story of London gangland, told with a considerable amount of panache'
......Philip Kerr in Time Out
'An ambivalent underworld morality splendidly painted through raw dialogue and seedy-glam atmosphere'
......Marcel Berlins in The Times
'Portrayed with a razor edge of social realism...sustained atmosphere of moral relativity...'
......The Sunday Times
'Crackles with action and with dialogue Hammett or Raymond Chandler might envy...James's characters sprint off the page...Hard-boiled in the grand classic style.'
......Publishers Weekly