A smart and troubling novel of ideas, which explores the power of crowds, collective guilt and the compromises required to balance a need for full disclosure with the desire to be kind.
Adrian Turpin
Financial Times
A terrific human story.
Mail on Sunday
A poignant tale about guilt, blame and love in a time of tragedy.
Stylist
The Report is an artful piece of work. The story itself has an appalling fascination, while the restraint of the telling, in both its factual and fictional aspects, lends it considerable power. Characters... are made richly present but are also shown as vanishing into history, refused the completeness of fictional narration.... As a documentary novel, The Report gains from the virtues of both forms.
Sean O’Brien
TLS
Her skilful evocation of the blitz means you can't help but sympathise with the characters - no matter what they may have done.
News of the World
She skilfully evokes the Blitz-battered East End and brings her characters to life. The Report is a sober, thoughtful book that acknowledges the complexities of human nature and the demands of emergencies and asks how history views the responsibilities of authorities in times of tragedy.
Tina Jackson
Metro
Kane's fictionalisation of a real life event keeps to the basic facts, but goes where they can't to produce a fascinating and movingly human explanation of how it might have happened.
Daily Mail
This artfully constructed novel takes as its foundation the largest civilian tragedy of WW2... what emerges is a piercingly emotional exploration of wartime anxieties, and later, of loss, blame and guilt.
Easy Living
Kane's command of period detail is marvellous ... Kane adroitly weaves together various theories [about the tragedy] and gives a sense of the grim succour that assigning blame can provide grief-stricken citizens ... [An] eloquent take on moral intricacy and ambiguity ... A deft, vivid first novel
Kirkus
A stealthy, quiet page-turner that understands there is as much tension in reckoning a disaster as there is in the disaster itself. In precise and searching prose, The Report looks without flinching at moral obligation and family duty over seconds, and over years. It's a lovely book
Elizabeth McCracken, author of AN EXACT REPLICA OF MY IMAGINATION The historical material and characters are wonderful ... Kane skillfully reimagines the empathetic Dunne as he interprets the confessions and accusations of a community crushed by loss and guilt ... Vivid descriptions of hunkered-down and rationed East Enders add a marvellous texture
Publishers Weekly
A fascinating read
Bella
[A] taut and psychologically astute examination of the human need for understanding... The whole is a subtle meditation not just on a document but on whether a written account of a traumatic event can ever satisfy all its objectives. And who decides all these objectives anyway? A novel which raises as many questions as it answers.
Lucy Beresford
Sunday Telegraph
Very thought-provoking and very moving
Rory McGrath A really pacy read
Dave Gorman A fascinating insight into a hidden piece of WW2 history... deeply moving... heartbreaking
Caroline Quentin
TV Book Club