The plot [of Holy Disorders] moves quickly and smoothly through various complications and convolutions toward a tense and dramatic confrontation between the criminals and the dauntless Fen. There is a most satisfactory, if unlooked for, explanation of the real motives and methods behind the murders and those responsible are brought to a final and somewhat poetic justice.

The great joy in reading this work lies in the care and attention which Crispin gives to locale, atmosphere and mood as the events progress in and around the parsonage at Tolnbridge. It is a rich, multi-colored portraiture of people and place with all of the shaded subtleties of life one would expect in so unsettling a situation as murder, though not without some superb touches of humor that are not as incongruous as one would think under the circumstances. Crispin commands language to its fullest limits to reveal not only what has happened, but also in what environment and under what emotional conditions those events have transpired. It is fiction as fiction should be written: language that is full without being ponderous; style that is genteel without being superficial.

In short, Holy Disorders is not only a fine, highly readable mystery; it is also an excellent example of what popular literature can be, but has rarely been for a long time.