SOURCE: "Books of the Times," in The New York Times, October 29, 1981, p. C24.

In the following review, Lehmann-Haupt views An Indecent Obsession as an improvement over The Thorn Birds but asserts that the novel lacks depth.

Michael is the unknown quantity. Michael seems well enough—altogether sane, in fact. But what is he doing here in Ward X, this isolated part of the hospital, set aside for "troppos," (for tropicals) or soldiers gone round the bend from jungle warfare? According to his medical papers, which Luce and Sister Langtry have read, Michael may be homosexual. What is known, and the reason that Michael is here in Ward X, is that he tried to kill a man in his unit who made some sort of pass at him. Tried to choke him to death and, according to a brief dip we take into Michael's point of view, rather enjoyed...