The Stone Must Break

Pearl Harbor and the tentacles of Word War II turn San Francisco into a raucous electrifying city. Twenty-year-old Carmel St. John moves into this maelstrom with dreams of winning the heart of Dr. Phillip Barron and becoming a big band singer.<p> There Carmel meets Caesar Almalto a black-market kingpin and Jerry Cassidy a musician who helps her and hopes to win her love. Nightclub life lust and murder swirl around her as does her tenuous relationship with Phillip who leaves as a commissioned officer aboard the first hospital ship in the Pacific theater. A family crisis threatens to destroy Carmel's dreams when she is called home to San Jose to manage the family's 1100-acre ranch during the war. <p> <I>The Stone Must Break</I> tells the saga of two families the St. Johns and the Barrons as they grapple with tragedy love and responsibility in a world at war.