THE BUTCHER'S BOY: THE BOOK CLUB EDITION

New York City, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 250 pages. The author's breakthrough debut novel. Thomas Perry's finest achievement. The First Book Club Edition. Published in a small and limited one-time-only print run as a hardcover original only by special arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons. There is no ISBN. The First Book Club Edition is now rare. Presents Thomas Perry's "The Butcher's Boy". His masterpiece. What is the secret of his success? Thomas Perry melds the best elements of the thriller genre, as if inventing suspense for the first time, to his genuine ability to create an authentic literary character (rather than a mere cipher of an archetype-hero), who comes to life, even if we never even learn his real name, normally the first rule of literary creation, and leaps off the words on the page. He then calls himself Michael Schaeffer, seemingly reformed and retired. But to his author and his fans, he will always simply be The Butcher's Boy, whom we root for as the righteous, athletic-precise, and near-infallible David to the Goliath called the Mafia. He succeeds in evading both his relentless pursuers and the just-as-dogged Justice Department. The gist of the Series is that as such, he finds himself (and his loved one) targeted and compromised continually, in successive decades, as he inevitably gets older and therefore somewhat weakened. The work of justice, whose atavistic essence is revenge, never ends because, in the real life that great fiction must reflect, evil never ever takes a brake. In "on-cue" ten-year intervals, Thomas Perry published "Sleeping Dogs", the sequel, in 1992, "The Informant", the third, in 2011, and "Eddie's Boy", the fourth, in 2021, the "summing-up" novel in the now-legendary Series. An absolute "must-have" title for Thomas Perry collectors. This title is a great novel in the thriller genre. This is one of few copies of the First Book Club Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. It is the single most beautiful copy of the edition we have ever seen. Please note: Copies of the First Edition available online have very serious flaws (because they have been read), are in multiple subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked yet command many hundreds of dollars, rightly so. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the most brilliant American novelists of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER THOMAS PERRY TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).