Collett, in his book, portrays Dyer as a man who got on extremely well with his men and his juniors, while his contemporaries and seniors were always wary of him. When he approached a complex political problem, his one thought was to have order; his one tool to get it was the gun. He notes that, at the time of the Amritsar massacre, Dyer was wracked by ill-health and separated from his beloved family. Collett speculates that perhaps this encouraged Dyer's extreme view that the Punjab was on the brink of rebellion, with the empire about to collapse, and feared a mutiny like that of 1857. The solution, he decided, was not just to restore order but to show that the state was in charge. It was not enough to have shops and businesses reopen in Amritsar – an example was needed of the consequences of insubordination.