Hardcover
1933 · Boston
by Nebel, Frederick
Boston: Little, Brown & Company. Fair in Good dj. 1933. 3rd printing. Hardcover. [ex-lending library copy, although minimally marked as such (no stamping, labels mostly removed from ffep, four-digit call number in ink at bottom of rear endpaper; the book itself is shelfworn, with the boards showing through the cloth at all corners and at a couple of spots on the bottom edge, but the binding is good and the book is internally clean despite some soiling to the page edges; the jacket is worn but largely intact, having been (in typical rental-library fashion) backed with brown paper and affixed securely to the pastedowns at both flaps]. First of only three novels published by this hard-boiled writer (all of which are quite scarce), whose career was largely confined to the pages of "Black Mask," "Dime Detective" and the like. A suspense yarn that takes place largely aboard a passenger train, it was filmed twice: by Fox in 1934 under its original title, then again by 20th Century-Fox in 1941 as a "Michael Shayne" mystery with the title cleverly changed to SLEEPERS WEST, lest anybody suspect the writers of having no imagination. (The latter was actually a nifty little B picture with Lloyd Nolan as Shayne.) . (Inventory #: 15825)