A number of people have told me recently how much they love Alice from the Cross books. (For those who haven’t read The Mona Lisa Sacrifice or The Dead Hamlets yet, Alice is a real-life version of Alice in Wonderland who is perhaps Cross’s closest friend.) So I thought I’d share an image of Alice that is perhaps my favourite vision of her. It’s created by artist Stephen Rothwell (image via Boing Boing) and I think it sums up some of the ways I also see Alice, at least in terms of its dark beauty and conflicting elements.

If you like the eerie nature of this, then I think you may like the next few Cross books.