The Widowmaker [*SIGNED*]

London: Cassell. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. 1967 (c.1966). First British Edition. Hardcover. [very slight discoloration to binding at base of spine, no other discernible wear; the jacket is lightly worn at edges and extremities]. INSCRIBED to Academy Award-winning screenwriter Daniel Taradash and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "To Dan / with love over the years / Marika / Palm Springs April 14, 1968." This "horrifying and at first sight incredible story" concerns the mysterious deaths of a number of World War I veterans who have returned to their remote Hungarian village -- deaths at first thought to have been from natural causes, perhaps exacerbated by what today we would call PTSD, but which eventually arouse the suspicions of a young lieutenant, who notes that "their passing seemed unregretted by their widows" or anyone else in the village, and sets out to investigate. The jacket blurb asserts that the narrative "is based on truth; something of the sort did actually happen"; according to Wikipedia, that something was a series of murders in the Hungarian community of Tiszazug in the 1920s. The author was the wife of Hungarian playwright and journalist Ladislaus (aka Leslie) Bus-Fekete. At one point she adapted the novel as a screenplay (an undated draft resides in the Daniel Mann Papers at the Margaret Herrick Library), but nothing ever came of it. Signed by Author .