Fat Man's Agony

London: Geoffrey Bles, 1969. First Edition. Jacket art by Gareth Floyd. 7.5" x 5". 224 pp. Light sunning to lower front cover; some endpaper discoloration; previous owner's library red ink stamp on ffep (H.M.S. Blake); better than Very Good overall, with an exceptionally matching spine with bright gilt. Jacket has small nicks and creases at edges (see scan), a solid Very Good which has not been clipped and does bear the "21s net" price. A true first with jacket of Fat Man's Agony, one of the rarest of first editions from Glyn Carr, master of mountaineering murder mysteries in which his lead character, the redoubtable Sir Abercrombie Lewker, "professes age and decay, but doesn't display them much" and quotes Shakespeare on every occasion whether requested to or not. In Fat Man's Agony, Lewker is invited to spend a weekend at the farmhouse of Bertrand Awdrey in North Wales to climb local crags with such names as Fat Man's Agony and Suicide Wall. Lewker - and all the other invitees - are still members of a climbing club from which Mr. Awdrey had been expelled some years before, so... Glyn Carr is the pen name of Lt. Commander Showell Styles, a climber himself, of course, and the author under one name or the other of more than eighty books in various genres. Other Glyn Car mountaineering murder mysteries include: Lewker in Tirol; A Corpse at Camp Two; Swing Away, Climber; The Youth Hostel Murders; The Ice Axe Murders; Murder on the Matterhorn; Death on Milestone Buttress; Death of a Weirdy; Death Under Snowdon. As Showell Styles, some of his more recent titles have been Midshipman Quinn, Mallory of Everest, and Welsh Lakes and Legends. A very handsome example of a scarce book; please see scans. L42n


Genre: Mystery