[In A Complete State of Death] John Gardner has crafted a moderately suspenseful tale about an English subsidiary of the Crime Syndicate, presided over by a very U type who trains his recruits and plans their activities as did the commando officers on the late TV shows…. The diverting and occasionally exciting plot is hindered by Gardner's Scotland Yard man, one Detective Inspector Derek Torry (nee Torrini) who is a pre-Vatican II Catholic, beseiged by doubt, guilt and adolescent sexual fantasies about women's underwear. One Graham Greene a century is probably enough.

A review of "A Complete State of Death," in The Critic, Vol. 28, No. 2, November-December, 1969, p. 107.