 Symons also saw defects in Fleming's style, including "his inability to write convincing dialogue".For Symons, the novel was Fleming's "weakest book, a heavily padded story about diamond smuggling", where "the exciting passages are few".Milward Kennedy of "The Manchester Guardian", thought that Fleming was "determined to be as tough as Chandler, if a little less lifelike", while Maurice Richardson, in "The Observer", considered Bond "one of the most cunningly synthesised heroes in crime-fiction".