'Like all great books, A Thread of Violence is the document of a great writer's obsession. Mark O'Connell draws the reader into a deeply engrossing story, and at the same time into a complex investigation of human brutality and of narrative writing itself. This is a superb and unforgettable book'
- Sally Rooney
'Phenomenal. It's very dark, necessarily, but I found it very rich. Macarthur seems as though he's being generous and open, but there's also this manipulative side of him. It's like a chess game between the two of them, which I found really compelling'
- Guardian
'No contemporary literary mind seems to me more subtle, perceptive or trustworthy... [An] eerie, philosophically probing book... A Thread of Violence instils the certitude not only that no one else could have written this book, but that no other need ever be written on the subject. It's a marvel of tact, attentiveness, and unclouded moral acuity'
- Guardian Book of the Week
'Ruminative, sophisticated, urgent and inky dark. O'Connell is one of the best non-fiction writers around... Biographers and writers of true crime, I suspect, will come to regard this as a classic. It is more than a niche masterwork, though; it is an exceptional piece of storytelling'
- The Sunday Times
'O'Connell writes with great humanity about Macarthur's victims... This is one of the really out-standing books of modern Ireland. It is a heady cocktail of reportage, detection, and reflection... A magnificent book'
- Irish Examiner
'Queasily brilliant... A clever and thoroughly disquieting book'
- FT
'One of the most disturbing things I've read for a good while... O'Connell is a gripping writer and some episodes have a scalding chill... Fantastically interesting'
- Daily Telegraph