The terrifying power of the Nazis over writers' imaginations is undiminished, despite the difficulty that now its men are old or dead. John Gardner, in The Werewolf Trace, has found a new device with which to re-evoke the horror now and in England; but his recall of the unspeakable last days of Hitler and the Goebbels family is more powerful than the fictional modern threat—apart from the threat of The Trade, prepared to act almost as unspeakably to safeguard what are seen as British interests. This is Gardner's best so far—what a versatile creature he is! (p. 459)

Marghanita Laski, "Fresh Spring Crimes," in The Listener, Vol. 97, No. 2503, April 7, 1977, pp. 458-59.∗