First edition, first printing. 224pp. In black cloth-covered boards with red lettering on gold relief on the spine. 8vo. Cloth a little worn, gently rounded on corners and spine ends. Pages a little off-bright but else interbnally neat, clean and tight. In its original dust wrapper, rubbed and nicked on edges, corners and spine ends with minor loss. Dust jacket now protected in a Mylar wrapper fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.
Nicolas Bentley, the son of crime writer E C Bentley, was a leading commercial artist and humourist in the1920s and 30s. The dust wrapper claims this as his first novel but it wasn't - it was preceded by Gammon and Espionage a decade earlier.
