London: Jarrolds, [1939].
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Hardcover. First edition. Cocked and with foxing very good in very good or better dustwrapper with some scattered creases and small tear, largely at the perimeter. Inscribed in the year of publication: "Sincerely yours, James Hadley Chase 20.v.39." An attractive copy of probably the author's scarcest and most desirable book due to the English edition being almost wholly destroyed when the publisher's warehouse was consumed by bombs during the London Blitz. A landmark and sensational hard-boiled novel about a young socialite kidnapped by a gang modeled after the Barker Gang, and kept in a narcotic haze so she will submit to the debased desires of one of the gang members, until private detective Dave Fenner comes along and things get bloody. Author's third mystery and filmed twice, once in Britain under this title, and in the U.S. as *The Grissom Gang.* A difficult edition to find, even more so signed by the author.
Item #424372
