Books: Just Like Paradise

THE ENCHANTED ISLANDS (280 pp.)—Ainslie and Frances Conway—Putnam ($3.50).

To tabloid readers with long memories, the Galápagos were the home of a lady known as Baroness Eloise, whose favorite costume was a pair of silk panties and a pearl-handled pistol. In 1934 she vanished with the latest of her seedy lovers and has not been sighted since—much to the chagrin of Sunday-supplement editors. Since her day the archipelago has been popularly regarded, at least by tabloid readers, as a lovers' Eden, with hibiscus and orchids everywhere and acquiescent beauty under every bush. But U.S. Army & Navy men who were...