Cobras with False Faces

New York: Vantage Press. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1971). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice clean book with minimal shelfwear; jacket very lightly edgeworn with faint soiling]. Vanity press novel in which "Rafael Whitfield, a professor of the sciences at the State Teacher's College in Mount Ridge, is falsely accused and convicted of committing a lewd act with Mack Malone, a coal miner, costing him his post, possessions and nearly his life!" The strangely oblique jacket bio of the Oklahoma-born author -- also "R.W.," please note -- describes how "by diligent toil in menial professions, he acquired his education and became a college professor." It then runs down his various degrees and the schools he attended (all of which match to the letter those rattled off by his accused protagonist on page 39), yet omits any mention of just where he served as a professor, noting in conclusion only that he is "currently making his home in southern California with deep scars of the many resulting physical and mental bruises, but head still unbowed!" I'm sure writing this book made him feel MUCH better. .