["The Golden Isle"] is a skilled and effective ligature of these dramatic elements, a mingling of valor, virtue and villainy that should more than satisfy the normal appetite for swift and violent action. (It may shock the squeamish reader, if any is still extant.) We guarantee that it will widen your knowledge of fractures, fevers, witchcraft, cuckoldry and the inhuman traffic in slaves known as blackbirding. The hero is a young English physician kidnaped by agents of a Florida slave smuggler and given a choice between death and serving on human cargo ships running the feeble coastal blockade off the Florida coast. The novel is vivid, colorful stuff, and Dr. Slaughter has a sardonic touch in laying bare the motives of men and the emotions of women.