SALEM FRIGATE(500 pp.)John JenningsDoubleday ($3).
Hard tack and chocolate fudge, manly bellows and girlish squeals are the ingredients of Salem Frigate, which scuds from Cape Ann to the Barbary Coast without a second's worry about the finer points of literary art and navigation. Author Jennings, who wrote 1939's best-selling Next to Valour (TIME, June 12, 1939), is an old hand: he knows how to cram a historical novel full to bursting with blood, sweat and tears, and can wield both cutlass and bobby-pin with sangfroid.
He gets off to a flying start by marrying...