Burial

‘An intelligent, tightly written page-turner . . . Can he save himself and all that he holds dear? Believe me, you really need to find out’
Daily Mail

‘His scariest and most satisfying yet . . . What it doesn’t tell you about the perverting, abasing power of guilt isn’t worth knowing’
Time Out

‘Terrifyingly scary . . . brilliantly written in taut, humorous prose, while being exceptionally well observed and paced’
Daily Mirror

‘Burial is not only a page-turner, but also a sensitive and atmospheric portrayal of a man at the end of his tether . . . Creepy, unsettling, and subtle’
Laura Wilson, Guardian: read the full review

‘A skilfully told and macabre story for fans of Hitchcock . . . Cross maries literary values to the page-turning crime narrative . . . There are some readers who won’t thank Cross for taking them into such moral terra incognita, but even those feeling a little grubby won’t be able to dent the author’s sheer mastery of his unsettling task’
Independent: read the full review

‘Cross ratchets up the tension in ways that will have you biting your knuckles to the bone’
Metro

‘This compulsive page-turner is a thrilling read’
The Sun

‘[A] pacy, gripping thriller’
Esquire

‘Terrific’
London Lite

‘Chilling’
Elle

‘Scary . . . difficult to put down’
Zoo

‘One of those books that will make you miss your stop on the train’
Vox

‘Another gripping tale from Neil Cross, the follow-up to the clever and disturbing Natural History, which will greatly appeal to fans of Patricia Highsmith’
Uncut

‘A fiedishly inspired plot . . . the dialogue is pitch perfect; it is a dark story but also  a moving one . . . unputdownable’
Telegraph: read the full review

‘The plot boils mercilessly towards a dramatic conclusion and lingers in the mind long after the final page . . . utterly compelling’
Material Witness: read the full review

‘Perfectly calculated to keep the reader on tenterhooks . . . As events move towards a grim and jaw-dropping climax, it’s clear that once again Neil Cross has demonstrated he is the master of the uncomfortable, worrying suspense narrative. Burial is a queasy – but undeniably compulsive – read’
Barry Forshaw

‘Burial is a compelling read, but beyond the spiral of fear, self-interest and guilt, Neil Cross also captures the tenderness and melancholia of everyday life and love’
Catherine O’Flynn, author of What Was Lost

‘Genuinely chilling and laced with devilish humour, Neil Cross’s muscular narrative digs up familiar themes of perversion and foetid secrets. But it’s his uncanny ability to scratch away at the deeper layers of the human psyche that elevates his latest thriller’
Observer: read the full review

‘This elegantly structured thriller deals with the consequences of a sudden death, the disposal of the body and the news, 15 years later, that the burial site is about to be excavated. Clever, with a satisfying twist at the end’
Independent

‘Super-stylish, knuckle-biting thriller’
Metro

‘Cross has produced a superior page-turner, which brilliantly takes the reader through a complex web of intrigue, stretching from this world to the next without ever selling out to help tie the ends together’
Edinburgh Evening News

‘Perfectly calculated to keep the reader on tenterhooks — in all kinds of ways…  As events move towards a grim and jaw-dropping climax, it’s clear that once again Neil Cross has demonstrated he is the master of the uncomfortable, worrying suspense narrative.  Burial is a queasy – but undeniably compulsive – read’
Amazon Feature Review

www.stuff.co.nz: review

www.lovereading.co.uk: review

Simon & Schuster UK website: reading group guide

The Fiction Desk website: profile

TVNZ website: interview

Metro.co.uk: interview

The doorbell rang.

Nathan had a feeling – but he dismissed it, muted the TV and went to the door. There stood Bob; hunched over, grinning in the darkness and rain. Saying: ‘Hello, mate.’

Nathan said, ‘How did you find me?’

‘I looked.’

Nathan tried to slam the door, but Bob put out a big hand, stopping it. Then he removed the hand and said, ‘They’re digging up the woods.’

For maybe the first time since Mr In-Between, I sat down to write a book simply because it was the kind of thing I wanted to read.

I wanted to tell a story where things just keep getting worse and worse for the main character. I wanted to write about guilt and ghosts and murder. But mostly, I wanted to entertain people, and frighten them. I wanted to keep them awake until the early hours.

In this respect at least, it turns out that that Burial was pretty successful. My new editor Francesca and I kept a nightmare tally.

The ironic cherry on the pie, naturally, was that it was also my best reviewed book to date.

I learned early on not to care too much about reviews — if you’re going to ignore the bad ones, you have to take the good ones with a pinch of salt, too — but you’ve got to appreciate the neatness of that.

UK Publication: Simon & Schuster (January 2009)

French Edition: Belfond (February 2010)

Netherlands Edition: Bookerij (November 2009)

German Edition: Dumont (August 2011)

Czech Edition: Moba (2017)