"… I ordered two books, the third installment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, … and Hugh Ashton’s At the Sharpe End. At the Sharpe End arrived first, so I began to read it. …. I found that I was enjoying At the Sharpe End so much that I did not want to stop reading the novel, even after The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest arrived!”
“An intriguing trawl through the murky interface where industrial espionage, high finance and plain criminality meet in the Far East, with global implications—a Sharpe twist on the genre.” Ann Tierney, Managing Editor, Searching Finance (London)
”Ashton did an amazing job of making characters who should have been unlikable likable and then throwing them back into the despicable category. He manages to do this with multiple characters and he did so with real skill.”
“As an American who has spent time in Tokyo, I am particularly intrigued by Ashton’s depiction of ex-pats’ life in Tokyo. The unromantic detail brings realism to the story, which deepens the reader‘s involvement in the story. The characters in the novel become familiar, and stay with the reader long after finishing the book. At The Sharpe End is definitely in the “page-turner” category of novels. This is a book that readers will find difficult to put down, and they will feel satisfied at the end.” B. K. Thomas (USA)
“First, Ashton knows Tokyo, knows the Japanese (he’s married to one), knows his way around in the financial world, and knows computer systems. … Second, the main characters are well drawn and believable …. Third, and this is important, the secondary characters, both good and bad, the ones who supply the mystery and thrills (this is a thriller, after all) are so good that you hope to meet them in a sequel—the high-tech genius, his evil wife, her shady father, the Japanese cops and agents, and of course the British intelligence agents, who are becoming a welcome Ashton trademark. And finally, the book comes to a rousing, satisfactory conclusion.”
“The interests and challenges in this story make me feel like I’ve been living in it for four days. I love it.”