The Forensic Records Society - Hardcover

Mills uses his blokes in the back of a pub to tell a massively ambitious story . A story that could be read as a disguised retelling of the Russian revolution, or the Reformation, or the Sunni-Shia schism, or any great human falling out. As soon as you form any kind of "us", Mills suggests, a "them" will form in response. In this, The Forensic Records Society is like Animal Farm but with blokes for pigs, and much better songs (Guardian)

For nearly twenty years Mills has been entertaining and occasionally perplexing readers with his enigmatic tales of thwarted expeditions, projects and schemes . Tremendously funny. Mills is one of Britain's best comic writers, and this is an excellent introduction to his scrupulously amusing world ... You will love this book. Buy one on Saturday to go with that Toto single (Andy Miller, Spectator)

One of our most idiosyncratic voices ... Deceptively genial, eerily comic ... Mills is extremely good on the way obsessiveness is an end in itself for these barely distinguishable chaps ... It also contains some classic Mills hallmarks, including the unsettling impression something sinister is going on, if only you could work out what it is (Daily Mail)

An allegory about power, ambition and primal struggles for supremacy. It works wonderfully well because it is so distilled and so funny, but also because of the particular veneer of civilization that Mills has chosen to map . A novel that feels like an off-kilter Nick Hornby starts to be imbued with the spirit of Harold Pinter. It is quite remarkable how, on such a tiny canvas, Mills can achieve such stunning effects ... Hugely enjoyable (Independent)

A drily funny allegory for societal divisions. The spartan nature of the narration and dialogue, the brevity of the book as a whole, and Mills's propensity to omit information, creates a claustrophobic, uneasy sense that things are more than the sum of their parts (Times Literary Supplement)

'One for the pop pickers . There are some wonderful aspects to The Forensic Records Society . Bloomsbury have pushed the boat out with the packaging, which is a wonderful pastiche of the sort of vintage 1960s seven-inch single sleeve collectors covet at record fairs, and will really make you think there must be three minutes of music as well as 180 pages of prose to discover inside (Herald)

This, his ninth novel, is as odd, simple and parabolic as the first eight ... The theme is unmistakable and unavoidable - when humans can fall out, they will fall out **** (Metro)

A true original (Mail on Sunday)

A demented, deadpan comic wonder (Thomas Pynchon)

He's original, he's eccentric - and I predict that Magnus Mills will still be fascinating his admirers 100 years from now (Kate Saunders Saga)