Heliopolis

Merits the epithet Dickensian in a number of ways: In its generous anger at injustice and inequality, its attention to the lives of the poor, and its relish for food... But, as with Dickens, you don't read this for the plot, but for the power of the writing, the descriptions that fizz off the page, and the lust for life

Independent on Sunday

The writing is exemplary: you feel the hand of a natural at work

Guardian

Scudamore has the superb novelist's gift for giving vivid, sympathetic life to even second string characters, as well as his main ones; he also has the extraordinary power of summoning an entire brooding, smoggy city to life. Most of all, he has the ability to take on the heaviest of themes with the lightest and most compelling of touches, and leave you with an appetite for more

Daily Telegraph

A triumph

New Statesman

Scudamore is an accomplished stylist...he skewers the excesses and banality of advertising with panache...a triumph, in particular in its depiction of third word urban sprawl

Economist

The writing is exemplary: you feel the hand of a natural at work, one whose command of tone is strong, and who has an instinctive feel for handling a story

Guardian

Heliopolis is written in beautiful, clear prose, at ease equally with the flittering, dangerous games of the socialites and with the pungent depths of the slums...James Scudamore has produced a fascinating study of a young man's awakening and a city of peril

Literary Review

A witty, vivid and disquieting story

John Preston, Seven Magazine, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

A book that will linger in your consciousness long after you put it down

Pink Guide