The Killers

New York: The Macaulay Company. Very Good. (c.1931, 1928). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [moderate shelfwear, some browning/spotting to page edges, light bumps and slight fraying to cloth at bottom corners, one-time owner's signature in pencil on ffep, tiny tear at fore-edge of title page]. Crime novel that segues to a Western setting about halfway through (hence the Western-motif front-cover decoration of a man on horseback waving a large hat), by this prolific pulp novelist, one of eleven books he wrote under the Baxter pseudonym between 1923 and 1935. This tells the exploits of "Geraldi, dashing knight errant, [who] is a modern Robin Hood who preys only upon those who have preyed upon others." Originally serialized in Western Story Magazine in 1928; later published (as by Max Brand) as "Three on the Trail," and subsequently in paperback as "Gunman's Goal." [The original serial title was probably "Tragedy Trail," although I've not verified this directly; another seller claims it was "Three on the Trail," but that title does not appear among the list of serials credited to Baxter during 1928.] (**) .