<b>Tension </b>without brutality, <b>local colour</b> without small-minded sentimentality, <b>good intelligent reading with depth</b>.

- Christine Hage, Handelsblatt

<b>A piercing examination of our reality </b>. . . <b>Bottini uses the full potential of the genre</b> to look deep into humanity's abyss and sees there the concealed traumas of German society

- Tomasz Kurianowicz, Die Zeit

<b>Gripping</b>.

Tatler.

The first of his award-winning Black Forest novels to appear in English. It has <b>an arresting opening</b> image: a Buddhist monk with a head injury strides across the snowy landscape of the border country between Germany and France . . . <b>a surprising and genuinely shocking case</b>.

- Joan Smith, The Sunday Times

<b>A nicely done shock thriller</b>

Weekend Sport

<p>An atmospheric, original story that will keep you hooked to<br />the final heart-rending revelations</p>

Crime Review

Bottini has established himself as <b>a strong new voice in crime</b> with this inventive mystery . . . <b>The fictional landscape is beguiling and the story utterly gripping</b>

Book Noir

With its <b>cinematic writing style</b>, its <b>brilliant sense of </b><b>location</b> and its strong visual depiction of an inhospitable landscape, <i>Zen </i>provides <b>an </b><b>intelligent and engrossing crossover novel</b> between a police procedural and the study of an individual's personal collapse

- Ewa Sherman, Riveting Reviews