The Danger Tree is the leisurely first part of [Olivia Manning's] trilogy …, and the reluctance of the narrative to take off is to a large extent compensated for by her vivid sense of [war-time Egypt]. All the same, her concentration on historical accuracy hasn't extended to fictional consistency—one character turns up as Trench from page 116 on, despite being referred to as Trent since the beginning. And if this unimportant slip is evidence of hasty writing, so too are the frequent passages when Ms Manning seems to have switched over to automatic pilot: 'The cases, mostly of pigskin or crocodile, were elegant and their owner, a tall woman in a suit of pink tussore, looked as elegant as the cases.' Such style! (p. 220)