Havoc, in its Third Year - Softcover

'As uncompromising as a biblical text, Bennett's drama captures life in the raw - both in the dock and the chamber. A modern parable in historic guise' Independent, 24/6/05 (Independent)

'Ronan Bennett's novel is a little gem, as perfectly constructed as it is forcefully delivered... The period detail is thrillingly good' Sunday Telegraph, 10/7/05 (Sunday Telegraph)

This is a gripping novel, its narrative staggered with betrayal and intrigue and suffused with the hot threat of violence. Bennett's prose is economical, powerful, and often poetic (The Times)

No one today writes with such sombre clarity of divided loyalties and shifting political allegiances... Bennett beautifully conjures a sense of holiness... he is marvellous, too, at drawing vivid images from common life... There isn't a bogus sentence in the book (Ian Thomson, Spectator)

Bennett's evocation of a corner of England on the edge of apocalypse is wonderfully done... the novel's language is flowing yet exact, marked with a wonderful strangeness (Kathryn Hughes, Guardian)

An accomplished and ambitious work of fiction... HAVOC is Bennett's best novel to date, and deserves a significant place in the modern canon (Observer)

[Bennett] is a supremely stylish writer... His characters rise empathetic and irresistible from the pages (Sunday Herald)

[His] writing is always profoundly informed by politics and belief... conjures up a bleak and brutal world, but sets against it delicate details of human feeling and perception... [Bennett] has a great deal to tell us, and he does it with skill, beauty and human sympathy (FT Magazine)

Superb... already long-listed for the Booker, HAVOC, IN ITS THIRD YEAR has the pedigree of a novel that can, and should, go further. It is a thrillingly satisfying piece of work (Sunday Telegraph)

Both an atmospheric thriller and a consternating study of the horrors of fundamentalism... grim, compelling and ultimately bracing reading (Irish Independent)

England in the 1630s: turbulent times, with fears of foreign invasion and Catholic conspiracies rife. John Brigge, a farmer and coroner, is respected in his North Country community, but harbours a dangerous secret: he is also a Catholic. When he is called to adjudicate on the murder of a new-born child, Brigge finds himself drawn into matters he would rather avoid. Katherine Shay, an Irishwoman, is accused of killing her baby, and the town's powerful Puritan faction demands her immediate death. Brigge suspects their haste has little to do with a quest for justice. What are they hiding? And does he really want to know?