764. Friel, James: Left of North
Published by Macmillan, 1987
1st edition hardback, very good in a very good dust wrapper. The author's first novel, a black comedy.
308. Fuhrman, Chris: The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
Published by University of Georgia Press 1994
1st edition hardback in very good + condition, foxing to top page edges, slight mucky marks to page edges, rubbing to extremities.The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper has not been price clipped and too is in very good condition. Set in Savannah, Georgia, in the early 1970s, this is a novel of youth, its anarchic joy, and its first encounters with the concerns and apprehensions of early adulthood. Francis Doyle, Tim Sullivan, and their three closest friends are altar boys at Blessed Heart Catholic Church and eight-grade classmates at the parish school. They are also inveterate pranksters, suburban Tom Saywers. Bright, artistic, and unimpressed by adult authority, they are sworn to subvert the world that their parents and teachers have made for them. Trouble at school presents the opportunity for their crowning escapade -- for a chance to move beyond broken streetlights, playground brawls, and shoplifted junk food. They had barely finished drawing Sodom vs. Gomorrah "74 -- a collaborative comic book depicting Blessed Heart's nuns and priests gleefully breaking the seventh commandment -- when it fell into the hands of the principal. An extraordinary coming of age novel by an author who has been denied his chance to become a truly great American literary force.
1141. Gadney, Reg: The Champagne Marxist
Published by Hutchinson, 1977
Hardback 1st edition. Both book and dust wrapper in near fine condition. An account of America's Most Secret Communications Network 'The Cage' based in England - in a story of betrayal, obstructive bureaucracy, feverish sexuality and alcoholism of wives locked in a closed community.
765. Gallacher, Tom: The Wind on the Heath
Published by Hamish Hamilton, 1987
1st edition hardback in very good condition in a very good dust wrapper. Tom Gallacher was best known as a playwright until the publication of his short stories, "Apprentice", which won a 1983 Scottish Arts Council award. His greatest achievements in the theatre were the three plays "Mr Joyce is Leaving Paris", "Schellenbrack" and "Revival".
1144. Gardner, John: Brokenclaw
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1990
1st edition hardback, near fine book and dust wrapper. A James Bond 007 adventure. On holiday in Victoria, British Columbia, Bond becomes intrigued by Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand. On his return to the UK Bond is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system. It becomes clear that Brokenclaw is behind the kidnapping and worse, he has a devastating plan to cause economic meltdown through the collapse of the dollar. Bond has no choice but to enter his lair ...
2062. Gardner, John: Death is Forever
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1992
1st edition hardback. Ex-library book with the front end paper roughly removed and a book withdrawn stamp at the half title page otherwise very good. The dust wrapper is very good. The Cold War is over. After two British agents die under mysterious and strangely old-fashioned circumstances in Germany, Bond is paired up with beautiful CIA agent 'Easy' St John. He's been assigned to track down the surviving members of "Cabal", a Cold War-era intelligence network that received a mysterious and unauthorised signal to disband. It's not long before Bond and Easy find themselves playing a life-or-death game as they try to figure out who they can trust. All the while, Cabal agents are dying one by one...
766. Gardner, John: Every Night's a Bullfight
Published by Michael Joseph, 1971
Hardback 1st edition. Very good in a very good price clipped d/w. First three pages of text a little creased but nothing serious. Jacket slightly rubbed at the edges with a small closed tear to the base of the spine. It is the opening night of the Shireston Festival Company's new season; a season which began for Silver way back last summer when the trustees responsible for the Festival had appointed him Director with a free hand and a generous budget to rescue the Shireston from the obscurity into which it had gradually sunk over the years. A production of Romeo and Juliet with a difference...the conflagrations that ensue both on stage and in the actors private lives snare the reader in the complex cobweb surrounding the theatrical production of any Shakespeare play.
767. Gardner, John: Flamingo
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1983
1st edition hardback in very good condition with dust wrapper. Set in cosmopolitan Shanghai amid the Sino-Japanese wars of the 1930s is Harry Byrd, rakish owner of the Flamingo Cafe, fighting for existence against predatory local mandarins, corrupt officials and the sinister Japanese Black Dragon Society, part criminal and part military intelligence unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.......
1143. Gardner, John: Licence Renewed
Published by Book Club Associates, 1981
Hardback, a fine copy of this book club edition in a like wrapper designed by Mon Mohan using a Richard Chopping water-colour. Pages slightly browned. The first of John Gardner's novels featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent. Bond has been assigned to investigate one Dr. Anton Murik, a brilliant nuclear physicist who is thought to have been meeting with a terrorist known as Franco. Together they plan to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world and start a global meltdown, unless Bond can stop them...
1145. Gardner, John: No Deal Mr. Bond
Published by Jonathan Cape, 1987
1st edition hardback. An ex library book with the usual associated faults. The dust wrapper having been protected is fine and the book is pretty good too. The sixth James Bond 007 adventure from Gardner. Two female agents of Operation Cream Cake - double agents and honey traps against the KGB - are murdered. Bond must find the others and conduct them to safety before they meet a similar fate. In a race against time, Bond travels to Ireland and the KGB is soon on the scene. But all is not as it seems and soon Bond finds he needs all his wits to negotiate a labyrinth of double-crossing that is to lead him to a bewildering showdown in a remote corner of the Kowloon province of Hong Kong, where, weaponless, he is hunted by four assassins.
2063. Gardner, John: Seafire
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1994
1st edition hardback in fine condition, there are no previous owner names or marks. The dust wrapper is faded a little at the spine and upper and has a ½ inch tear at the bottom front edge otherwise unclipped and very good. As weapons quartermaster to world class terrorist groups, Tarn's vast trail of arms leads Bond and Freddie on a treacherous journey through Spain and the Middle East to his top-secret floating laboratory in the Caribbean and a deadly scheme which will prove the immense power he holds.
2059. Gardner, John: The Man from Barbarossa
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1991
1st edition hardback. Ex-library book with the usual stamps at the title page, withdrawn from stock stamp at the front end paper and a security sticker at the rear pastedown otherwise very good. The dust wrapper has some light surface marks but is unclipped and otherwise in fine condition. An elderly American is kidnapped by a Russian terrorist group, apparently on the mistaken belief that he is a war criminal responsible for a Second World War-era massacre. The group demands the Soviet government put the man on trial, and begins murdering government officials when leaders refuse. Captain James Bond is partnered with an Israeli Mossad agent and assigned to work with the KGB in infiltrating this group and discovering their real motives, which include sabotaging perestroika and supplying Iraq with nuclear weapons before the United Nations-led coalition invades.
2061. Gardner, John: Win, Lose or Die
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1989
1st edition hardback. There is a library, withdrawn from stock, stamp at the front end paper otherwise fine. It seems to have been withdrawn before it was issued. There is a date stamp inside the dust wrapper rear flap otherwise unclipped and fine. When M receives word that a terrorist organisation known is planning to infiltrate and destroy a top-secret British Royal Navy aircraft carrier-based summit of world leaders, James Bond is returned to active duty in the Royal Navy. Promoted from Commander to Captain, Bond is expected to infiltrate the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and identify potential sleeper agents. As he struggles to complete his mission, a massive war game is being carried out between the American, British, and Soviet Navies. And when Bond gets caught up in a murder investigation the safety of the most powerful leaders on the planet hangs in the balance...
2060. Gardner, John: Win, Lose or Die
Published by Putnum, New York, 1989
1st edition US hardback. There is a previous name and address at the front pastedown which is hidden by the jacket flap otherwise very good condition. The dust wrapper has a couple of small tears at the edge and chips at the tips but is unclipped and otherwise in very good condition. When M receives word that a terrorist organisation known is planning to infiltrate and destroy a top-secret British Royal Navy aircraft carrier-based summit of world leaders, James Bond is returned to active duty in the Royal Navy. Promoted from Commander to Captain, Bond is expected to infiltrate the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and identify potential sleeper agents. As he struggles to complete his mission, a massive war game is being carried out between the American, British, and Soviet Navies. And when Bond gets caught up in a murder investigation the safety of the most powerful leaders on the planet hangs in the balance...
2333. Gardner, John: GoldenEye
Published by BCA, London, 1995
1st edition hardback, the true first. Browning of the pages, as is usual with this edition, otherwise both book and dust wrapper are in fine condition. There are no previous owner names. Janus, a powerful Russian leader whose ambitions are money and power, and whose normal business methods include theft and murder, has just acquired GoldenEye, a piece of technology with the power to destroy the West's financial markets. But Janus has underestimated his enemy - James Bond.
22. Garland, Alex: The Beach
Published by Viking, London. 1996.
Scarce 1st edition paperback in very good condition. A small section of the text has been bound in upside down, from page 27 to page 58 otherwise a clean, tight and very tidy hard to find 1st. No hardback edition was published. There are no previous owner names or other marks. Basis for the film of the same name. The classic story of paradise found - and lost. Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. In Thailand, he is given a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach - and a new way of life. What Richard finds when he gets there is breathtaking: more extraordinary, more frightening than his wildest dreams. But how long can paradise survive here on Earth? And what lengths will Richard go to in order to save it?
768. Garland, Alex: The Tesseract
Published by Viking, 1998
Hardback 1st edition. Signed by the author. Fine in like unclipped d/w. Reportedly only 1000 hardbacks were printed, so this is another scarce title from the author of "The Beach". Gripping from the first pages, Garland's new novel is set over three hours during one night in Manila. With the pace and suspense of THE BEACH this novel intertwines three stories: the shady dealings of gangsters, the tautly and emotionally drawn tale of a Phillipino family and the violent lives of a gang of street kids, until their different lives collide in a shattering finale. It is beautifully written and unputdownable.
769. Gatiss, Mark: The Devil in Amber
Published by Simon and Schuster, London. 2006.
1st edition, 2nd impression, Hardback in fine/as new condition. The dust wrapper is not clipped and there are no previous owner names or marks. Lucifer Box - the gorgeous butterfly of King Bertie's reign, portraitist, dandy and terribly good secret agent - is feeling his age. Assigned to observe the activities of fascist leader Olympus Mons and his fanatical Amber Shirts in a snow-bound 1920s New York , Box finds himself framed for a vicious murder. Using all his native cunning, Box escapes aboard a vessel bound for England armed only with a Broadway midget's suitcase and a string of unanswered questions. What lies hidden in the bleak Norfolk convent of St Bede? What is 'the lamb' that Olympus Mons searches for in his bid for world domination? And what has all this to do with a medieval prayer intended to summon the Devil himself? From the glittering sophistication of Art Deco Manhattan to the eerie Norfolk coast and the snow-capped peaks of Switzerland The Devil in Amber takes us on a thrilling ride that pits Lucifer Box against the most lethal adversary of his career: the Prince of Darkness himself.
2321. Gatiss, Mark: The Vesuvius Club
Published by Simon & Schuster, London. 2004
1st edition hardback in very good condition. There is a previous owner inscription to the dedication page otherwise fine. The dust wrapper is fine and unclipped. Edwardian London. It is a world that seems familiar to us: Hansom cabs rattling through fog-choked streets, gin-swilling aesthetes rubbing shoulders with movers and shakers of British Imperial grandeur. And beneath the confident facade, naturally, an underworld of sinister Tongs, crazed anarchists, murder, and seething vice. So much for the familiar picture of comforting Victoriana. But this is the world of Lucifer Box and nothing is quite as it first appears. Lucifer Box is the most fashionable portrait painter of his day: trading bon mots with the best of them and ruthlessly exploiting his talent and dandified beauty to enter every level of this intriguing society. From his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (well, someone has to live there...) to his vast studio in Chelsea, from the snow-choked streets of Tsarist St Petersburg to the sun-bleached hotels of Mentone, life is one long, dazzling party. Of course, leading a double life is terribly fashionable and Lucifer Box is not to be outdone. For what Box's fashionable circle would never believe is that their witty, cheerfully bisexual friend is also a secret agent...
Published by Simon & Schuster, London. 2008
Hardback, UK 1st edition, in fine/as new condition. There are no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper is also fine, not clipped or faded. Lucifer Box. He's tall, he's dark and, like the shark, he looks for trouble. Or so he wishes. For, with Queen Elizabeth newly established on her throne, the now elderly secret agent is reaching the end of his scandalous career. Despite his fast-approaching retirement, queer events leave Box unable to resist investigating one last case...Why have pillars of the Establishment started dying in bizarrely reckless accidents? Who are the deadly pay-masters of enigmatic assassin Kingdom Kum? And who or what is the mysterious Black Butterfly? From the seedy streets of Soho to the souks of Istanbul and the sun-drenched shores of Jamaica, Box must use his artistic licence to kill and eventually confront an enemy with its roots in his own notorious past. Can Lucifer Box save the day before the dying of the light?
2139. Gibbons, Stella: The Matchmaker
Published by The Book Club, London. 1950
Hardback edition 1st thus. Both book and the unclipped dust wrapper are in very good condition. The unclipped dust wrapper is a bit creased with some small tears at the edges and a small chip lost at the bottom of the spine but is otherwise very good. Uprooted from war-torn London, Alda Lucie-Brown and her three daughters start a new life at Pine Cottage in rural Sussex. Unsuited to a quiet life, Alda attempts to orchestrate - with varying degrees of success - the love affairs of her neighbours. Her unwilling subjects include an Italian POW, a Communist field-hand, a battery-chicken farmer and her intelligent friend Jean.
770. Gittelson, Celia: Saving Grace
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1985
Hardback 1st UK edition. Nr fine in a very good unclipped d/w. The jacket has a couple of closed tears to the front folds and is slightly rubbed. D/w now protected. "an irreverent romp in the playing fields of the lord" with Leo XIV, who never wanted to be pope. Author's first novel.
771. Graham, Winston: The Walking Stick
Published by Collins, 1967
Hardback, small tear to fold of very good unclipped d/w damp stained inside back panel transfers onto back board of an otherwise fine book. Deborah, cultured and intelligent, has been handicapped since childhood. Convinced of her lack of attractiveness, her work has become her life. Leigh, a painter, refuses to be discouraged by her rejections. As Deborah blossoms into a woman in love, she is drawn into a sinister unknown world.
772. Graham, Winston: Woman in the Mirror
Published by Bodley Head, 1975
Hardback 1st edition, very good in a very good dust wrapper. Norah has been in the Syme household a few days before she learns of her close resemblance to her employer's niece, Marion Syme, who drowned several years ago. Is there something to be afraid of in the half-deserted house - or something more sinister, in the psyche of someone who lives there?
773. Graham, Winston: Cameo
Published by Collins, 1988
A very good 1st edition hardback in a very good dust wrapper. A soldier on leave in London during the Blitz goes to check on his parents' home while they are away, but by mistake he goes to the wrong house and finds a dead woman. Winston Graham wrote the "Poldark" novels and "Marnie".
774. Grass, Gunter: The Rat
Published by Secker & Warburg, 1987
1st edition hardback in very good condition. The dust wrapper is also very good. A female rat demonstrates that her species will inherit a devastated earth but will inevitably imitate the grotesque example set by human destructiveness throughout history.
775. Greaves, Jimmy and Norman Giller: The Final
Published by Arthur Barker, 1979
1st edition hardback in very good condition. The dust wrapper is also very good. 2nd of many collaborations between the two authors.
776. Green, Daniel: Bunter Sahib
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1985
Hardback 1st Edition. Very good in a like unclipped d/w. The fictional memoirs of the adult Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, recounting his adventures in India. 'Daniel Green's Bunter has an attribute seldom if ever discussed at Greyfriars School. He is, in the parlance of the 1820's, 'remarkably well hung.' Hence his appeal to the Begum of Sumroo, and to all the other masterful women whose attentions have landed Bunter in his present predicament.'
777. Greene, Graham: The Captain and the Enemy
Published by Viking, 1988
A fine 1st edition hardback in a fine dust wrapper. A young boy, Victor, is collected from school by a stranger in a bowler hat - the stranger says he has won Victor in a game of backgammon with Victor's father. The stranger, known as the Captain, takes Victor to live with the sweet but withdrawn Lisa, where he serves as her conduit to the outside world. From mysterious beginnings, Graham Greene's final novel becomes a twisting thriller of smuggling, jewel theft and international espionage which culminates in a dramatic showdown in Panama.
778. Greene, Graham: The Last Word
Published by Reinhardt, 1990
US 1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. This bundle of short stories is an excellent introduction to the works of the sometimes controversial British novelist. A collection of ten stories, the first written in 1923 and the last in 1988.
779. Greene, Graham: Brighton Rock
Published by Heinemann & Bodley Head, 1980
Hardback, very good+ in a very good dust wrapper. The Collected Edition. A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold. Greene's gripping thriller exposes a world of loneliness and fear, of life lived on the 'dangerous edge of things'.
2451. Greene, Graham: A Burnt-Out Case
Published by The Reprint Society, London. 1962
1st thus, book club hardback with dust wrapper in near fine condition. There are no previous owner names or marks. Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference: he no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper mutilated by disease and amputation. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heat of the tropics, no relationship with a married woman will ever be taken as innocent...
2452. Greene, Graham: Our Man in Havana
Published by The Reprint Society, London. 1960
1st thus, book club hardback with dust wrapper in very good condition. The book leans slightly and is a little rubbed at the dust wrapper edges. There are no previous owner names or marks. Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true, things suddenly get more complicated and Havana becomes a threatening place.