Books: Kicks and Cuffs

THE CHRONICLE OF AARON KANE—Frederick Wight—Farrar & Rinehart ($3).

Aaron Kane was born on an island off Shelter Point, Cape Cod, a well-meaning, red-headed boy who grew up in the great days of clipper ships, was apprenticed to a sailmaker, ran away to sea, was shanghaied in Edinburgh, kicked and cuffed as a cabin boy back and forth across the Atlantic. He survived, studied navigation, became a mate and did a little kicking and cuffing on his own, got mixed up with rebels in Genoa and, under the spell of a revolutionary temptress, ran arms...