Fast One

London: Constable, 1936. Hardcover. Very Good. First English edition. Penciled owner's name, cheap paper a little toned, three or so leaves a little dogearred, a couple of rings on front board, but a sound, good or better copy lacking the dust jacket. The true first American edition is a legendary rarity of hardboiled detective fiction, about a mysterious criminal loner who insinuates himself in, and wreaks havoc on, the Los Angeles underworld. The protagonist is unremittingly merciless but loyal to those who deal squarely with him, and is a prototype for scores of similar characters. This is the author's only novel, written, appropriately for a hardboiled novel, on a bet. Paul Cain was the pseudonym of Peter Ruric, a Hollywood screenwriter (*Gambling Ship* with Cary Grant, *The Black Cat* with Karloff and Lugosi, etc.). He is referred to in Bill Pronzini's survey of mystery literature *1001 Midnights* as "(unquestionably)... the hardest of the hardboiled writers for *Black Mask* in the early 1930's."

Rare. The first English printing must have been miniscule. In forty years we've never seen or heard of another copy. *OCLC* locates a single copy (at the British Library Reference Collection).