Hardcover
(c.1934) · New York
by Coe, Charles Francis
New York: A.L. Burt Company. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. (c.1934). Reprint. Hardcover. [minor soiling to edges of text block; jacket shows a bit of wear at corners and spine ends]. Crime novel about a thief who executes a "perfect" kidnapping of an infant girl, one element of which involves stashing her with an unsuspecting family while he begins a two-year campaign to extract ransom money from the girl's father. Unfortunately for all concerned, however, he gets pinched (while visiting Canada) for a previously-committed crime, is convicted, and sentenced to twenty years in a Canadian prison. When he's released in 1933, he's faced with two immediate problems: (1) how to navigate an entirely different criminal landscape (Prohibition and all that having happened in the meantime); and (2) how to find the kidnapped girl, now grown to adulthood. The book was made into an interesting movie called NANCY STEELE IS MISSING! by director George Marshall at 20th Century-Fox in 1937, with Victor McLaglen and Peter Lorre. . (Inventory #: 21140)