Nigel Ash is a hot tempered ex-flier, ex-smuggler, ex-black sheep—holed up in the North Woods to get in touch with himself. This is the kind of ruminative but venturesome hero whom David Walker knows how to put into action exceedingly well. In a log cabin owned by his banker brother, Ash tries to exorcise his past by transmuting it into a novel, but reality keeps interfering with regeneration…. An encounter with a couple of vicious poachers leads to violence and to a chase in which Mr. Walker gets everything together, past and present, in the fortifying atmosphere of the great outdoors.

Martin Levin, "Fiction: 'Ash'," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1976 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), June 20, 1976, p. 32.