‘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
