Thief

191 pages. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's grey cloth with black and red lettering to spine in original illustrated jacket. First American edition.

Gerry had always been 'the one who was different': even as a boy he found crime only an excitement, not a moral wrong. Perhaps he could have been rescued from this but he wasn't. From the moment he entered the Approved School his way forward was mapped out: robbery and deception, crime taken like a drug, until at last, as the henchman of the underworld mogul Graham Bond, he was prepared to risk everything - the happiness of a young wife and child, a promising career, the loyalty of the old woman who had stood by him through everything - to throw them all as stake just 'for kicks'. Through a series of incidents more tense than any ordinary thriller Thief moves rapidly towards a climax of violent excitement. There is a brilliant picture of how the underworld works and there is, too, a warmth and human understanding that will make this novel remembered long after it is laid down.

Condition: Spine ends bumped. Jacket price clipped, corners with small chips, spine ends chipped with tears and creases, spine toned and soiled else very good in like jacket.