In recent years, Peter Dickinson has been attracting attention for a series of low-keyed mysteries written with extraordinary concentration. It is not so much that the man is an unusually fine prose stylist. Even more, he has the ability to suggest, to leave things unsaid, and over his books hangs a suspended cloud that can scare the reader.

Dickinson maintains his high standard in "Sleep and His Brother."…

[Elements in the book include] a Greek billionaire, a pair of doctors with problems of their own, a denouement in which matters are none too satisfactorily settled. The author strings together these various elements like the virtuoso he is, and "Sleep and His Brother" should be high on the list when annual awards are considered. (p. 40)

Newgate Callendar, in The New York Times Book Review (© 1971 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 9, 1971.

Comedy of manners? ecological allegory...