The Night Watch

Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company, 1952 Little, Brown & Company, Boston, MA. 1952. Hardcover. Book Club Edition. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Light shelfwear to head, tail, and tips; light toning to pages and endpaprs. DJ: Good; missing small pieces at head, tail, and top of front panel; light wear to flap folds and spine shoulders. Blue boards and spine with bright red lettering on the spine. Clean internals. Interior hinges are sound and not split. 192 pp 8vo. The Night Watch starts with three detectives assigned to a stakeout job. Ritchie McCallister is the young, clean, honest one, who feels compelled to look after his partner Paddy Ahern. Ahern is an average cop, who has a habit of taking a nip from the bottle at times. Walter Sheridan is the third detective. Hes a wise ass, who only looks out for himself. The stakeout is the apartment of a bank robber's wife. One night the robber returns, and Sheridan and Ahern nab him. The guy has the money with him, so Sheridan kills him making it look like self defense. He's really after the cash, and he convinces Ahern he's doing this to protect him. Sheridan throws the body along with the loot into the trunk, with plans to retrieve it after the night is over. Things go quickly wrong for Sheridan and after a failed attempt to silence a female witness, he ends up killing Ahern. The second half of the novel involves the manhunt for Sheridan. McCallister, distraught over Aherns death and the attempt to kill an innocent girl, stalks Sheridan throughout the apartment development area with the assistance of other policemen. A clean very presentable copy in a Brodart mylar jacket.