Needless Alley

Critics Review

• A fine writer with a great sense of period and place who creates an atmosphere of mounting menace and dread. A more than promising debut

  The Times

• Conjures up a backdrop so vivid you can taste the smoke in the air . . . one of those books that runs like a movie in your head and leaves greasy fingerprints all over your memory

  Val McDermid, author of 1989

• Marlow’s very engaging protagonist may herald the birth of a new genre: Midlands Noir

  Financial Times

• Transplanting the hardboiled Hollywood noir of the 1940s to the backstreets of 1933 Birmingham, [Needless Alley] has all the seamy glitter and cynical grime of the genre

  Daily Mail

• Marlow has a nicely theatrical way with a scene, and her witty prose has texture and heft. The city is atmospherically rendered, the narrative has an almost hallucinatory quality and Garrett is an engaging leading man. Needless Alley is an exceptionally well-written first novel that whets the appetite for many sequels

  Irish Times

• From its claustrophobic descriptions of Birmingham’s darker corners to revelations of the seedier proclivities of the rich and powerful, Needless Alley offers a gripping portrait of 1930s England, a country where Blackshirts and fascism have entered the national psyche. William Garrett – dour, dark, and damaged – is a man of principle in an unprincipled vocation. A meditative and wonderfully written historical crime debut

  Vaseem Khan, author of THE LOST MAN OF BOMBAY

• A gripping debut . . . Garrett may play hard-boiled but, in the best tradition of private detectives, there is a quixotic romanticism lurking under the cynical and dishevelled exterior

  Irish Independent

• This is pulp fiction of the highest quality, marking the arrival of a fabulous new thriller writer

  Tortoise

• An atmospheric, hardboiled thriller with a hint of Peaky Blinders about it

  Sun

• Needless Alley by Natalie Marlow is something special . . . [A] superbly written debut

  Morning Star

• Needless Alley is well plotted, lively and builds a great cast of characters for future mysteries

  Bookseller

• Crafted with all the style and elegance of classic hardboiled fiction, lovingly splashed in the grubbiness and grime of interwar Birmingham’s cuts, alleys and back streets. A smart, ripping yarn, whose compelling hero is movingly supported by a cast of lived in characters, and put through the wringer by some shocking and moving revelations. Sensational start to a new series

  Dominic Nolan, author of VINE STREET

• Deftly plotted, beautifully written, Needless Alley is a delicious slice of Chandleresque Midlands noir. Marlow’s pellucid prose shines a brilliant light on 1930s Birmingham and the lives and loves of the exquisitely drawn characters that populate its mean streets and waterways. I loved this book and I can’t wait to read more

  Mark Wightman, author of WAKING THE TIGER

• A Chandleresque hard-boiled detective novel with an atmospheric, horrifying feel all of its own. Tightly plotted and beautifully written, a world of Blackshirts and misogyny with a flawed, human detective who I took straight to my heart

  Harriet Tyce, author of BLOOD ORANGE

• Needless Alley not only evokes 1930s Birmingham in all its dark glory – it introduces characters that are impossible to forget. Read it

  Alan Parks, author of BLOODY JANUARY

• Marlow beautifully distils 1930s Birmingham into a seamy world of moral corruption: anyone can fall and few are left clean. Gripping, confident and atmospheric

  Kate Mascarenhas, author of HOKEY POKEY

• A terrific debut. It’s not often that historical fiction gets this down and dirty, but Natalie Marlow has delivered dark and twisted in spades. I urge you to take a stroll down Needless Alley, but you might want to watch your back as you do . . .

  Trevor Wood, author of DEAD END STREET

• Needless Alley, Marlow’s debut is crime fiction gold. Every word is crafted with care; every plot twist is elegantly presented. And at the heart of it all is a heinous crime that begs to be solved by a hero as full of heart as he is driven. I love everything about this book

  Femi Kayode, author of LIGHTSEEKERS

• Needless Alley is great – dark, gritty and full of unexpected twists and turns

  Frances Quinn, author of THAT BONESETTER WOMAN

• 1930s Birmingham is brought expertly to life in this atmospheric crime noir where corruption and seedy entanglements lurk down every darkly lit street. Compelling and clever, Needless Alley makes for a gripping read that any Peaky Blinder fan is sure to love

  Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of PANDORA

• Down these mean Brummie streets a man must go . . . and on the strength of Natalie Marlow’s cracking debut, I’ll be following. An elegantly written, meticulously researched 1930s noir thriller, with a twisting, turning plot and vivid characters both utterly of their time and powerfully resonant of our own

  Robbie Morrison, author of EDGE OF THE GRAVE

• Needless Alley is a great murder mystery, rich in character and detail and darker than a Black Country canal at midnight

  Peter Hanington, author of A CURSED PLACE

• As with every atmospheric mystery, it’s all about the lighting, and Natalie Marlow illuminates the hard-boiled players in this thrilling debut with all the dexterity of any of our great noir novelists. You will wince, you will gasp, you will shudder at every turn, and you will want to keep reading until that last light dims at the disquieting end

  J.M. Varese, author of THE SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHER and THE COMPANY