It was inevitable that Evan Hunter would turn his attention to the suburban development jungle. In his earlier novels problem and background were given equal attention—one seemed to grow out of the other. [In Strangers When We Meet] background is merely backdrop; the problem is everything. The predicament of the unfaithful husband occupies these 375 pages of shrill insistence. Perhaps a tract against lust is indeed intended. Still, there is such a ruthless portrayal of the stark realities of the problem that the moral fulcrum is lacking. The best indication of the spiritual poverty in the world Mr. Hunter displays here is that only a deus ex machina … solves the protagonist's dilemma….

Mr. Hunter is serious, strident, and terribly flat in an intended case history which, this time, does not at all come off.

Riley Hughes, in a review of "Strangers When We Meet," in Catholic World, Vol...