The Stars Look Down, by A.J. Cronin (Vista £5.99 in UK)

A.J. Cronin seems as much a period figure as J.B. Priestley, in fact rather more so, but the Dr Finlay novels have in recent years made effective television. This bulky saga-novel, first published in 1936, deals with industrial strife in north-east Britain and is set early in the century when labour relations as such were in a primitive state. Cronin, though an ultra-respectable middlebrow author with a big "family" readership, does not hide his emotional sympathies which are almost entirely with the workers and the under-dogs. Television serials have largely taken over from this type of fiction, though it persists in America where many people still appear to enjoy novels which are long, panoramic and combine plenty of incident and drama with a leisurely, even plod-plod narrative pace. If so, this one should be their meat, ready-cooked and packaged.