For those of you who have never heard of it, Kirkus Reviews is an august American magazine for the book trade. It publishes reviews of new books, tipping booksellers off on the ones to watch. And, occasionally, delivering hatchet jobs on books that don’t find favour with their anonymous reviewers. So it’s always a bit of a nail-biting moment to get the Kirkus review through. Thankfully, though, they seem to have liked The Red Hand of Fury. (Though I ought to point out there is a factual error in the review – it’s not my third book, more like my eighth as R.N. Morris, my ninth if you count the book I wrote as Roger Morris. But who’s counting?)
They save the verdict to the last sentence. Here it is:
