Dr. Frank Slaughter is now Major Slaughter of the Army Medical Corps, and the wonder is that he finds time to write novels at all. So it is probably ungrateful to wish that he had spent more time on "Battle Surgeon." It is, as it stands, a fast-moving, romantic, none-too-credible adventure story about a field hospital unit….

In the popular magazines the accepted formula for a love story hero is "men as women wish they were." Capt. Rick Winter, one supposes, fits this formula to the last angle of his lean profile. He can do a smooth splenectomy and a mean rumba….

There is plenty of room for good yarns of this sort, and "Battle Surgeon" is a good one. There would be little for any reviewer to object to if Dr. Slaughter had not given us reason to look for something more ponderable. He gave promise—and...