The novel was well-received by critics. In The New York Times, critic Michiko Kakutani called Amsterdam "a dark tour de force, a morality fable, disguised as a psychological thriller."[2] In The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard wrote, "Slice him where you like, Ian McEwan is a damned good writer" and discussed "the compulsive nature of McEwan’s prose: you just don’t want to stop reading it."[3] In The New York Times Book Review, critic William H. Pritchard called the book a "well-oiled machine, and McEwan’s pleasure in time-shifting, presenting events out of their temporal order(flashing back in Clive’s mind, say, to a conversation he had the day before) is everywhere evident.