[Full] as it is of action and interaction, of struggle against parched soil and human chicanery, "South of the Angels" is preeminently a study of the range of capacity and incapacity, of the variousness and the oneness, of the courage and the cowardice within the human heart….

[If] this were no more than the story of a fraud, it would be too familiar—among all the annals of men's fraudulence—to arouse more than a passing sigh. As it is, the fraudulence is merely a device which has both a divisive and a galvanizing effect upon its victims. What gives Miss West's novel its warmth and depth is the dimension she manages to achieve in each of her characters….

Miss West proves in this new novel to be a writer of far more than average vitality…. Miss West shuttles back and forth with an unfailing instinct for the...