"Here the probing is carried further in a brilliant and uncompromising indictment of some of the worst aspects of modern civilization, showing us the hard-boiled criminal mind not as a return to savagery but as a horrible perversion of cerebration."
–The New York Times "Why does this bleak, seething and anarchic novel still resonate? Its energy and power is that of the rebellious adolescent, foreshadowing the rise of the cult of youth in the latter part of the 20th century."
–The Guardian "[Greene] believed his coldness vital for his art - 'There is, ' he affirmed, 'a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer'."
–John Carey