"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
— P.J. O'Rourke

London: The Crime Club, 1931. [Detective Fiction] FIRST EDITION. Octavo, pp.250; [6], advertisements for new 7/6 detective novels. PUBLISHER'S UNRECORDED VARIANT BINDING of plum cloth blocked in black to spine and upper. Although the typeface used is the same, the brasses are a different size to those used on the regular orange cloth binding. Small, neat bookplate to pastedown. Text block is very clean, cloth a touch lightened to spine and extremities. A lovely near fine copy of one of the earliest Crime Club books by Collins. A bleak case, set in Christie's native Devon, against the rugged backdrop of Dartmoor in Winter with its looming menace, which adds, as in Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', an extra personality and depth to the proceedings. Named after the Sittaford 'Tor' (Celtic for rocky peak) where the author penned her first novel 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'. Item #53249
Wagstaff and Poole p.70. Cooper and Pike; Detective Fiction.
Price: £1,000.00