In "Bloody Murder", Julian Symons wrote that Freeman's ". . . talents as a writer were negligible. Reading a Freeman story is very much like chewing dry straw." Symons then went on to criticise the way in which Thorndyke spoke. De Blacam also noted Thorndyke's "ponderous legal phraseology". However, that pedantic ponderousness is the nature of Thorndyke's character. He is a Barrister and used to weighing his words carefully. He never discusses his analysis until he has built the whole picture. Others do not agree with his assessment of Freeman's writing skills. Raymond Chandler, in a 13 December 1949 letter to Hamish Hamilton said: "This man Austin Freeman is a wonderful performer. He has no equal in his genre and he is also a much better writer than you might think, if you were superficially inclined, because in spite of the immense leisure of his writing he accomplishes an even suspense which is quite unexpected."