Reviews
The Devil’s Playground reviews
‘Demonstrating rare intelligence, brilliantly structured, beautifully
written, this is the finest first novel I have read in some time. It is
altogether extraordinary, and introduces a major talent.’
- James Sallis
“Sherez is hunting big game. He takes the most frightening atrocities
of the twentieth century and explores them in a way you’ll never forget.
The most exciting, compelling and clever thriller I’ve ever read.”
- Matt Thorne
‘A brilliant and disturbing book. As an investigation of human perversity,
it is fascinating; as a thriller, it stands comparison with the very best.
Mesmerising.’
- Toby Litt
The Devil’s Playground leads us willingly into the darkest parts of
Amsterdam, where the past invades the present and not even your own identity
is certain. A taut thriller which dissects the legacy of a frightful history
with intelligence and care
- Louise Welch
The Devil’s Playground is a spider web of love and terror, madness and grace, that brilliantly weaves some of the darkest moments of human history with the horrors that lurk just below the surface of modern life. A page-turner of mysterious murders, lost manuscripts, sexual obsession and deadly secrets.”
- Rennie Sparks (The Handsome Family)
“This book probes so relentlessly, fearlessly and deeply into the unspeakable darkness that it manages to work its way through to some impossible and redemptive light. I’ve read it twice and I’m sure I’ll read it again.”
- Steve Wynn
“The story is totally and utterly gripping. It deals with the most horrendous and dismaying material of all. A young promoter of a music magazine, actually, which is close to home here at Classic FM, he is in despair, his magazine’s just collapsed and suddenly he spots an old man outside his window who seems to be hovering for two or three days, not begging, not doing anything much. He invites him in and a whole series of events is unleashed. The series of events actually leads us to Amsterdam. It’s actually the best depiction of Amsterdam I’ve read since the novels of the late Nicholas Freeling. It leads us to the Holocaust museum and, in fact, it leads us into the Nazis’ worse kind of corruption and snuff movies and so on and it comes to a terrific ending. I mean, for a first novel this is extraordinarily ambitious and, I think, extraordinarily accomplished. All you want when you close the last page is to wait for the next novel by Stav Sherez. Now that’s as good as a first novel gets.”
- Classic FM
“Stav Sherez is a gifted writer … deserves to be the thriller of the summer”
- The Economist
“Impressive … a meditation on representations of violence decanted into a crime thriller”
- Time Out
“Ambitious, audacious, powerful”
The Observer
“Remarkably ambitious”
- The Sunday Times
“A dark crime thriller than begins with an act of kindness and ends with every moral certainty having been burned away….The Devil’s Playground is appropriately named. A highly charged, plausible and disturbing piece of work”
- The Big Issue
“A page-turner of a thriller”
- Metro
“A razor sharp thriller. Like Robert Harris, Sherez has an immaculate sense of pace, expertly propelling the story along. Gripping to the end”
- Jack
“A hypnotic page turner”
- City Life
“Juggernaut pace and moral-twisting narrative”
- The List
“Thought provoking and incredibly atmospheric debut”
- Publishing News