Mr. Jacobson [in The Price of Diamonds] presents his people with subtlety and intelligence, carefully sets them down in an unappetising South African township, and then, with the reader's interest fully and skilfully aroused, sets them ticking at a nicely calculated pace. But alas, the nicely calculated pace can apparently neither be varied nor halted, and one can only pray for the breakdown which Mr. Jacobson is much too efficient to allow…. After a promising and almost striking start, and with the evident talent at Mr. Jacobson's disposal, it is a pity the total performance should be so utterly futile.

Simon Raven, "Upstairs, Downstairs …," in The Spectator (© 1957 by The Spectator; reprinted by permission of The Spectator), Vol. 199, No. 6756, December 20, 1957, p. 879.∗