Reviewer Naomi Wineman wrote:[1] " Wrath of the Lion is noteworthy for the fact of virtually all its cast of male characters (heroes and villains alike, and it is not always easy to determine which is which) being professional soldiers, very deeply scarred, traumatized and embittered by the wars of the middle 20th Century (Second World War, Korean War, the French wars in Indo-China and Algeria, the British Malayan Emergency). The memories both of the horrors which they endured as prisoners of very inhumane captors and the horrors which they inflicted as utterly ruthless and determined fighters come up again and again, and substantially affect the plot in the book's present.
In particular, the book's main protagonist Neil Mallory is specifically mentioned as having the nickname "The Butcher of Perak". A long flashback to 1954 Malaya, including graphic descriptions of the systematic torture and extrajudicial execution of prisoners, show him to have amply earned this nickname, yet knowing his past does not prevent the warm-hearted Anne Grant from falling very deeply in love with him.
Given the book's great emphasis on the characters' tortured and traumatized psyche, the final scene seems a bit forced, with both victorious agents being embraced and kissed by their respective sweethearts and the reader promised a future of 'they lived happily ever after'."
