Crusaders review in the Financial Times (Adrian Turpin)

‘Is Richard T. Kelly's Crusaders the finest fiction debut of 2008? Too early to say, but there's little doubt that this epic will feature prominently in next Christmas's "books of the year" round-ups. Like the new Eurostar Terminal at St Pancras, this extraordinary state-of-the-nation novel manages to seem utterly of its time, despite the magnificent and unfashionable Victorian structural engineering that underpins it... Kelly brings the less salubrious parts of his semi-fictional Newcastle cinematically to life. He also has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, an empathy with ‘ordinary’ lives and a special ability to convey menace.’
Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

Crusaders review at Bookmunch.co.uk

"It’s big, it’s brave and, oh dear, it’s brilliant… What really grabs you though, is that Crusaders is a setting out of the stall. Right from the get-go, there’s a relentlessly strong sense of who ‘Richard T Kelly the author’ is. This means that, for the most part, Crusaders reads nothing like a first foray into published storytelling, but rather the culmination of a life devoted to fiction, or else the rejection of it. This is evident in the chances Kelly takes throughout novel number one, the most audacious being the decision to mix an idiosyncratic and elaborate style of descriptive prose with coarse North Eastern dialect. Whilst it’s something even the most jaded and established of authors might shy away from, Kelly goes for it full throttle… Crusaders is not only a pleasure to read, it’s a heart-breaker to finish. It’s one of those books that you hope doesn’t have an end… If this is the shaky debut that Kelly will be denouncing in a decade’s time, then we’re in for one hell of a ride. Crusaders is a ballsy and self-assured first effort that puts most writers’ entire careers to shame."

Crusaders review in Independent on Sunday (Joel Rickett)

‘Crusaders is a powerful, assured literary debut that will create loyal congregations of devoted followers... Kelly’s seriousness of intent and direct moral interrogation call to mind contemporary American giants Roth and Mailer. As does the panoramic sweep: rather than Brooklyn warehouses, the backdrop to Crusaders is the scarred mines, skeletal steel arches and rising call-centre blocks of North-east England.’
Joel Rickett, Independent on Sunday

Crusaders review in the Tatler (Ian Ramsey)

'The most impressive, most important literary debut in yonks ... Richard T Kelly's flair for character and dialogue keeps his state-of-the-nation epic whipping along but, above all, his seamless mesh of the personal and political leaves you swooning with admiration. Dostoyevskian in scale and ambition, Crusaders gets to the cantankerous heart of modern Britain.'
Ian Ramsey, Tatler

Crusaders review in Mail on Sunday (Max Davidson)

‘Crusaders is a terrific debut: an intelligent state-of-the-nation epic, peopled by three-dimensional characters, examining the tangled social roots of New Labour... Kelly has given himself a dauntingly large canvas but has filled every inch of it with life and colour.’
Max Davidson, Mail on Sunday

Crusaders review in the Independent (John Gray)

'A refreshingly ambitious and strikingly accomplished first novel … Kelly has an acute eye, and an ear that is almost pitch-perfect. His scenes of political chicanery amid urban dereliction have an unmistakeable feel of authenticity... Kelly renders a slice of history that reaches powerfully into the present. In Crusaders, he chronicles the metamorphoses of Tyneside with exceptional skill, and uses them to present an unsparing picture that is recognisable in every part of Britain.'
John Gray, Independent

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Crusaders reviews in the Sunday Times (Andrew Holgate)

‘This is a novel ultimately about faith and morals – morals upheld, morals compromised, morals abandoned – and Kelly’s complex and sophisticated handling of this theme ensures that the reader remains involved until the last page...’
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‘One accusation often aimed at modern British novelists is that they lack ambition and an instinct for the big stage. Step forward Richard T Kelly, whose Crusaders is a big, generous fiction debut that resurrects a whole tradition of British writing - the state-of-the-nation’s-morals set piece, more familiar from Victorian literature - and breathes new life into it... What really impresses is [Kelly's] ease with his characters and their milieu. I can't remember a modern British debut that offers a more convincing portrait of so many different walks of life, or that paints its portrait of an era and a region with greater credibility. A novelist to watch.’
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Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times

Crusaders review in Times Literary Supplement (Sean O'Brien)

‘Richard T. Kelly has written a bold novel, one well worth quarrelling with... The literary ancestry of Kelly’s book seems to lie not so much in the English novel as the French, perhaps in the energetic sprawl of Balzac’s Illusions perdues – that is, in a portrait of a society dominated by parasites, where virtue is a form of weakness... Crusaders examines the failure of goodness...’
Sean O’Brien, Times Literary Supplement
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Crusaders review in the New Statesman

‘Crusaders is an ambitious and convincing account of political chicanery, ideological quandaries and gang violence in 1990s Newcastle... We know from the book’s afterword that Kelly considers Dostoevsky his ‘Master’: in Stevie Coulson he comes closest to creating a Nietzschean anti-hero of his own... one of the great achievements of the novel [is] the depiction of a changing world in the north-east of England... In Crusaders, the north-east has found a new champion.’

Daniel Starza-Smith, New Statesman

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Crusaders review in Scotland On Sunday (Stuart Kelly)

‘The weight of hype can be unbearable. Try this: ‘Crusaders is the Great British Novel of this decade...’ [from David Peace]. Yet the measure of Kelly’s talent is surely this – that once you begin, his story obliterates that hype – its narrative force and the drive of its characters (even the bit parts), so sharply realised as to be utterly engrossing.’
Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

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Crusaders review in the Guardian (Alfred Hickling)

'A Dostoyevskian doorstopper... with an almost Tolstoyan seriousness of purpose... a weighty achievement in every sense, and its long, complex narrative is impressively sustained.'
Alfred Hickling, Guardian

Crusaders review in Daily Telegraph (Alastair Sooke)

‘Crusaders is a fiercely political novel... Kelly describes social deprivation with a red-hot sense of injustice... The dialogue is superb – Kelly excels at capturing thick, sinewy Geordie dialect...’
Alastair Sooke, Telegraph

Crusaders review in Glasgow Herald (Charlie Hill)

‘This is a bold venture, a novel of ideas about how best to make better the world... it asks profound and unavoidable moral questions of all of its readers... Is that a good thing? The morally charged, overtly political, almost Victorian sensibility of the book? Yes it is. It is a very good novel. And it is radical too.’
Charlie Hill, Glasgow Herald

Crusaders blog review by novelist Susan Hill

'This is a rough-hewn stone of a book... ambitious, truthful, perceptive and heart-breaking... It has sat well alongside The Brothers Karamazov on my bedside table... I admired this novel more than I can say for tackling some big, important, impossibly complex issues boldly and full-on... It is a book with a heart and a soul and courage and conviction and I commend it to you.’
Susan Hill, author (The Woman in Black et al)

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