The Prisoner In The Opal
Garden City: Crime Club/ Doubleday, 1928. First edition. Hardcover. First edition stated. Hardcover in black cloth lettered in red. Very good or somewhat better, prev. own. sig. top edge front free endpaper. No jacket. 354 pp. The third novel in Mason's Inspector Hanaud of the Surete series of mysteries. Set in the South of France, this thriller features a middle aged wine connoisseur, Julius Ricardo, who is on his annual summer trip to Bordeaux. He is invited to stay at the Chateau Sulvac estate of Diana Tasborough, the friend of the young beautiful American Joyce Whipple, whom he met in London prior to leaving for France. One of the other guests, Evelyn Deveneish, seems to have an intense dislike for Joyce. One night they both disappear; then a large basket is found in the river---it contains the naked body (minus one hand) of Evelyn. Inspector Hanaud is called in to investigate the murder and also to help find the missing Joyce. The plot thickens and includes mysterious lighted nighttime windows, a groundskeeper who is a defrocked Catholic priest, a poisoned garden gate, a Black Mass, diabolical paintings found hidden in a closet, a nick-of-time rescue, etc. etc. "The Prisoner In The Opal" wa the only one of Mason's Inspector Hanaud novels to feature the occult as a significant part of the plot. Very Good. Item #E35493
Price: $25.00