The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20101118081820/http://www.mikedash.com:80/
  • 'An indefatigable researcher with a prodigious descriptive flair.' Sunday Telegraph
  • 'History doesn't get much more readable.' New York Daily News
  • 'Dash writes with unabashedly cinematic flair, backed by meticulous research.' New York Times
  • 'No history I've read in years places you so deeply inside a piece of the past.' National Geographic Adventure
  • 'Dash captures the reader with narrative based on dogged research, more richly evocative of character and place than any fiction, and so well written he is impossible to put down.' The Australian
  • 'Fascinating… tantalizing… richly researched… This is what history writing should be.' Boston Phoenix
  • 'Cracking history… Mike Dash brings a confident organisation to his material, a rapid grasp of both personality and circumstance, and a bold eye for significant detail.' Daily Telegraph
  • ‘Fiendishly readable… Dash knows how to build and release suspense, and make a complex narrative lucid. He commands the reader's attention from the first page to the last.' Goodreads.com
  • 'Dash writes elegantly, with a deep understanding of history. His depictions are dramatic and comprehensive, and the depth of his research is to a level rarely seen in books intended for a general audience.' The Age of Sail: The International Annual of the Historic Sailing Ship
  • ‘Mike Dash excels at turning bizarre and esoteric historical episodes into thrilleresque nonfiction.’ Details
  • 'Dash writes the best kind of history: detailed, imaginative storytelling founded on vast knowledge.' Minneapolis Star-Tribune
  • 'Dazzling... Dash has an unusual talent for the telling detail... His prose is precise, functional – but beautiful.' La Nueva España
Mike Dash, historian, journalist and best-selling author
Up-close, personal, and full of you-are-there detail... Dash is that rarity: a perfectionist in his research and a writer who perfectly carves out his story with a pen as sharp as a stiletto
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Shows how history, when it is well-written and well researched, leaves today’s trendy servings of fact mulched with fiction for dead.
The Australian
A humdinger... a far better thriller than most fiction that passes for such these days.
The Washington Post on Batavia's Graveyard
Dash has powerfully recreated a morbidly degenerate milieu.
The Guardian on Satan's Circus
Enthralling… Mike Dash has written what is easily the best and most judicious book on this bizarre episode. He surpasses every previous account, both in the thoroughness of his research and in the clarity and cogency of his narrative. Even better, Mr Dash writes superbly. I read his book practically at a sitting, and have been having stealthy, silken nightmares ever since.
The New York Sun on Thug
A genuinely astonishing story. Mike Dash retells it with all the verve and meticulously researched authority one has come to expect.
The London Evening Standard on Thug
Fiendishly readable... an impressive achievement in scholarship and narration. Dash’s account is as persuasive as it is lively, and it is unlikely that the quality of his research will be surpassed soon. He commands the reader’s attention from the first page to the last.
Goodreads.com on The First Family

Corleone, Sicily, 1889…

The First Family by Mike DashThe First Family is Mike Dash’s outstanding new history of the birth of the American Mafia. Gripping, vivid, fast-paced, and yet painstakingly researched, the book follows Giuseppe Morello, the United States' first boss of bosses, from his Sicilian birthplace to New York as he and his murderous family scrabble their way from the Italian slums to control of organised crime throughout the country. Ranged against the ruthless Morello family are the police and Secret Service agents who have sworn to stop them. Who lives? Who dies? Click here to find out more.

"A first-rate book, written in lively, lucid prose, with a strong narrative line and a wealth of anecdote, much of it gory… seems likely to be the definitive work on its subject for years to come."
Washington Post

New York 1912…

Murder, Vice, Police Corruption and New York’s Trial of the Century

Satan's Circus by Mike Dash

"Outshadows any noir master’s contrivance. Dash’s depiction brings a fantastic backdrop and Charley Becker’s fall from grace into ripping yarn focus. A tour de force of scholarship and entertaining storytelling."
Boston Phoenix

India 1830…

The True Story of India's Murderous Cult
 
 

Thug by Mike Dash

"Excellently written and well-researched… For those interested in the wilder shores of human experience, Thug is an invaluable guide."
Peter Ackroyd in The Times

Australia 1629…

The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny

Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash

"From a Stevenson or a Golding, this would be a thrilling yarn; this time it’s true, and it freezes the blood."
Sunday Telegraph

Holland 1637…

The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Tulipomania by Mike Dash

"A fascinating exploration of human greed and self-delusion – and also a tribute to our ageless search for beauty. A compulsive read."
Deborah Moggach in The Literary Review

London, 1838…

A noble policeman encounters Spring-heeled Jack (etching)Publishing in 2010, Spring–heeled Jack: Sources and Interpretation will be the first detailed, fully–referenced study of perhaps the strangest and most enduring of contemporary legends. Spring–heeled Jack — a leaping, fire–breathing bogeyman who terrorised Victorian Britain — emerged from a welter of wild rumour in January 1838 and has never quite gone away. This new study, edited by Mike Dash with contributions from an international line-up of scholars, is firmly based on a comprehensive survey of in excess of 200,000 words of primary source material. It includes brand–new research examining how the Spring–heeled Jack legend originated in the years 1804–1837 and how and why the nineteenth century media reported the story. The book discusses Jack’s impact on the popular culture of the Victorian era, and analyses the spread of his legend around the world, from pre-revolutionary Russia to modern Somalia via Newfoundland, New Zealand and Argentina.

Details of how to order the book will appear here closer to the publication date. Hardcover. Approximately 700 pages, 425,000 words. Price £19.99.