Between the Covers

Softcover. Heavily corrected mechanically produced manuscript. Quarto. Approximately 396 leaves printed rectos only. Prong-bound in red flexible card wrappers. Label on front reads mistakenly reads *Killed in the Ratings* (the author's first book, published three years earlier), with “Ratings” marked out and “Act” substituted in pen. The published title was *Killed in the Act.* Small plastic holder contains several bound-in notecards with research relevant to the novel. Inscribed by the author at the bottom of the title page in red ink: “7/1/52 To Walter: This is the final copy of KITA, the one from which the book itself was set. It contains numerous corrections in my hand. Bill DeAndrea.” Why DeAndrea decided to date the inscription with the date of his own birth rather than that of publication (1981) is a mystery. A style sheet several pages long appears before the text itself. The pages themselves reveal dramatic alterations throughout on pretty much every page, some of which have been reproduced from a previous draft but many in the hand of DeAndrea himself, with large sections of text marked over, words substituted, or otherwise altered by the author, editor, and typesetter. This novel was the fifth volume of his series of Matt Cobb mysteries; his first novel, *Killed in the Ratings* won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1978. Accompanied by a nice first edition of *Killed in the Act.*.

Item #557637