The Deaths (Paperback)

'Astonishingly expansive, hilarious and heartbreakingly dark' Julie Myerson, Observer, Best Holiday Reads 2013

'Mark Lawson's dark social satire on the British upper middle classes, skewers with precision this group of rich professionals who have grown fat and well-holidayed during the New Labour boom years but are now coming to a crunch point . . . Lawson's skill is to make his characters believable and, despite their odiousness, to make us care about them and their (possibly terrible) fate.'

' Financial Times

'Mark Lawson writes with a forensic eye for detail, exposing the foibles of his characters with scalpel-like precision. A wonderful, bitingly satirical, achingly true, warts and all portrait of modern middle-class England - and a true shocker of an ending' Peter James
'A wickedly witty snapshot of contemporary life' Cambridge News
'Sharp and very funny . . . wonderfully vivid and detailed' Guardian
'A cleverly constructed crime novel that's really a dark comedy of social observation and satire.' Choice Magazine
'a wickedly witty snapshot of contemporary life.' Irish Examiner
'sharply observed and blackly funny' Metro Scotland
'Mark Lawson's bleak satire on England's new aristocracy pulls no punches' Observer
'packed with superbly sharp observation' Sunday Times
'written with panache' The Times (Saturday Review)
ambitious, relevant, brave and full of humour and heart -- Julie Myerson, Books of the Year * Observer *
a biting satire which skewers the moneyed classes while throwing them the occasional sliver of sympathy. We know from the start that the father from one of four wealthy families from the same idyllic village has massacre his wife and offspring and then himself, but Lawson takes us through several hundred gripping, intricately plotted pages before we find out 'whodunnit' -- Annual Books Round-Up 2013 * guardian *
The dialogue is good, the social comedy of manners is excellent . . . both fluent and funny . . . it is sharply written and astutely observed. This is an amusing and at times hilarious novel . . . The conclusion is moving, even redemptive . . . The Deaths is memorable and enjoyable -- Novel of the Week * The Tablet *