A. J. Cronin, one of the world's most popular novelists and least competent critics, has this to say about "Beyond This Place," his newest book; "It is probably the most exciting novel I have ever written."… The fact of the matter is that all nine of Dr. Cronin's previous brain-children are better proportioned and more intelligent….

"Beyond This Place" suffers from the major fault of having been "constructed," to use the good doctor's own word, to fit a crusade. It issues from irritation, not from intensity; it is shaped by artifice, not by art. In its grotesque attack on the present system of trial by jury … the book reads like badly diluted Dickens, passionate urgency all but gone and humor totally absent. In support of his attack Dr. Cronin concocts a fantastically irregular murder trial with which to berate the judiciary process, ignoring the fact that his own...