Mr. Arkadin

New York: Pyramid Books (G357). Very Good. 1958. 1st printing thus. Softcover. [moderate external wear, a couple of small pen squiggles at lower right corner of front cover]. Mass Market PB Novel about a mysterious international financier who pays a handsome young playboy to uncover his hidden past, which reveals "a sordid path of women, high finance and corruption." A fairly straightforward adaptation of Welles's 1955 film of the same name, first published in French in 1954 and in English in 1956. It seems to be generally accepted (and was more or less acknowledged by Welles himself) that the novel was actually written by Maurice Bessy (credited only as translator on the original French edition, but unmentioned in this printing). In any case, it's an interesting companion piece to the film, which critic David Thomson described as "a bad film such as only a great and self-consciously wayward artist could make." .