SOURCE: Dirlam, Sharon. Review of A Cruel Madness, by Colin Thubron. Los Angeles Times Book Review (6 October 1985): 22.

In the following review, Dirlam offers a positive assessment of A Cruel Madness, praising the novel as “gripping tale of passion.”

[In A Cruel Madness,] the calm voice of a rational man tells the story of his quiet life with all the drama of dry sticks rubbing together, rubbing, rubbing, until there's spark, a trail of smoke, a flicker, and the next thing you know you are surrounded by the fire of his passionate obsession. There are clues along the way that the story will slip from normalcy, the “spasms of recognition” of a man who sees his beloved 10 years after their brief affair, the “absurd desolation” he feels when she slips away again. Thubron has a gift for description (as one would expect of an award-winning travel writer): “Every wall...