<b>Clever, wise, heartbreaking and yet also life-affirmingly funny: his literary comic lightness of touch is on a par with Wodehouse.</b>
- JOANNE HARRIS, bestselling author of Broken Light and Chocolat,
<b>A delight to read - a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom about the strange and miraculous craft of writing. It's the sort of book that makes you want to underline every other sentence. Beautifully written, of course - one would expect no less from Chris - and characterised by its complete lack of self-pity. I hope it sells by the truckload. </b>
- ANDREW TAYLOR, bestselling author of The Shadows of London,
<b>A delight: perceptive, wise and illuminating </b>on the act of reading (no genre held terrors for him) and, equally, the act of writing. All of this in <b>a book full of disarmingly sardonic gallows humour about his own impending death. An unmissable farewell from the much missed author.</b>
- Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES
<b>A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.</b>
- SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries,
<b>Not a hint of Pollyanna here, just</b> <b>the most hilarious, life-affirming book you’ll read this year</b>.
SAGA magazine
<b>Wonderful</b> . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message, from the adoration of Dickens to the guilty pleasures of terrible horror movies . . . he was a man with a deeply-felt love (and I don’t use the word lightly) for the arts, both minor and major, and <b>his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages</b>.
- Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME
Peppered throughout with a <b>wit and wisdom that makes every page turn </b>. . . seek him out and discover <b>what a fine talent the world has lost</b>.
STARBURST
<b>Funny and poignant</b>, <i>Word Monkey </i>is full of fascinating insights and is more than just a first-rate memoir . . . <b>a fitting memorial to a terrific writer.</b>
- MARTIN EDWARDS,
<b>Funny and moving.</b>
- Laura Wilson, GUARDIAN, Best Crime and Thrillers of 2023