GREEN ICE
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. First Edition. Whitfield's first hard-boiled novel, portions of which were first serialized in the pages of Black Mask between December 1929 and April 1930. "The plot is convoluted to the extreme: At least twelve characters are killed trying to locate five fabulous missing emeralds, the "green ice" of the title, each worth $50,000; all the mobsters, molls, and cops (crooked and otherwise) Ourney meets are after the stones; and all of them - even the good cops - are willing to kill for them" (Pronzini & Muller, p.840). While Whitfield was one of the best-paid writers of his time, writing nine books and over 300 stories for the pulp magazines, his career never quite broke out the way it did for contemporaries like Carroll John Daly, Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Cornell Woolrich. While he enjoyed a somewhat promising career, after three failed marriages (two of them ending in suicide), he died broke, having succumbed to tuberculosis in a Los Angeles hospital in January, 1945. Uncommon; we note a single, unsightly jacketed example of the UK edition in the auction record, though none for the American - a 20th century crime fiction rarity not found in the holdings of even the most notable collectors in recent memory (Lackritz, Rechler, Neville, Penzler). Hubin, p.425. Item #4993
First Printing. Octavo (19.5cm); pale green cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in maroon and dark blue on spine and front cover; maroon topstain; dustjacket; [viii],282,[8]pp. Previous owners ink name to upper front pastedown, sunning to spine, with some irregular fading to cloth; small splash mark to upper front cover and front endpaper, with a few occasional spots of finger-soil to margins; Very Good+. Dustjacket is deeply price-clipped, gently spine-sunned, with modest external wear (especially along the joints and spine panel), shallow loss to spine ends (though none affecting lettering), with several small nicks, tears, and attendant creases; faint circular stain to front panel, tiny numerical rubber-stamp on front flap, with a single tiny tape-mend on verso; a Very Good, unrestored example.
Price: $9,500.00