London: Hutchinson, 1970

8vo, pp. 319. Original burgundy boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Maps to endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket, faint production fault crease to rear panel and a little light wear to corners and spine ends.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO TITLE PAGE: ‘For Jack With all good wishes from his friend Dennis. Saw your photo in the D.[aily] Mail this morning; but I never see you in the Club these days D’. The recipient was the thriller writer Harry Patterson -- better known by his pen name Jack Higgins, and the author of The Eagle Has Landed (Collins, 1975). ‘The Club’ was almost certainly The Garrick in London.

The tenth of Wheatley’s twelve black magic novels, a series which helped make him one of the biggest selling novelists of the 1950s and 60s.