from the review: ‘The portrait that Anthony Ferner paints in this Fairlight Moderns novella, of Nicholas Anderton, a successful neurosurgeon, is like a painting in which a skilful artist has used colours you had never before realised existed in skin tones to convey a man’s complexity and depth. Ferner has clearly researched his subject thoroughly, and to convincing effect. He spares the reader none of the visceral details of brain surgery: as in other arenas of life that simultaneously repel and attract, we may feel squeamish about the contortions of the hidden and essential soft tissue inside our skulls and yet find ourselves horribly fascinated. No wonder. This is, after all, the location of all we are as sentient beings, and the precise and detailed descriptions of Anderton’s work are in large measure what make Inside the Bone Box a compelling read.’