River in the Sun — Elizabeth Beatty

Marianne was as indignant as her father, D'Avilez Sanchez, when the Navy started to take over Mayport on the St. Johns River as carrier base. For Sanchez House, once the home of the blue-blooded Sanchezes and now a hotel, could not hope to keep guests when at any moment a jet would streak across the skies, blasting the world apart.

Only stone-deaf Mrs. Romano remained at Sanchez House when Chief Petty Officer Pat Bohannon of the Forrestal came to rent a room while his ship was in port. Then, on Pat's heels, came the glum Bernard Houseman, who spoke with an accent and cowered with fear whenever a jet passed overhead. And no sooner was Houseman settled in his room than three more men arrived--all cut from the same cloth, and all as surly and unfriendly as Houseman.

Marianne, who had always said that nothing ever happened at Sanchez House, was forced to eat her words in the days that followed... First, Pat Bohannon was clobbered on the stairs; then, Pint, the old but incomparable cook at Sanchez House, Mrs. Romano, Marianne's father, and the two Navy men who had come to investigate the Chief's "accident," were found bound and gagged... And the next day, Houseman's body was dragged from the river by shrimpers.

Only pert Liz Summers, wife of Pat's best friend, kept the world quite sane for Marianne... Liz, and Mariann's growing love for the young Chief Petty Officer of the Forrestal.