The Desperate Hours [*SIGNED*]

New York: Random House. Very Good in Good dj. (c.1954). 2nd printing. Hardcover. NOISBN . [binding slightly shaken, light age-browning to top- and fore-edge; jacket edgeworn, with a few surface-nicks and very shallow chipping at top of spine; note also that the jacket is somewhat unevenly faded due to laminate removal (much had peeled away over time on its own; the remaining bits were carefully removed by us)]. INSCRIBED ("To _______ / with best wishes --") and SIGNED by the author on the ffep, where the book is additionally stamped "Return to Story Dept. / Paramount Pictures Corporation." Suspense novel about a group of escaped convicts who terrorize a suburban family in their home -- a plot that in retrospect seems to have mainlined a certain kind of 50s suburban paranoia: "Even HERE we're not safe!" It was a multimedia hit, with the author also rendering the book for the stage (it had a respectable 212-performance run on Broadway in 1955) and the motion picture screen. The film version, released less than two months after the curtain came down on the initial stage run, starred Humphrey Bogart as the alpha convict and Fredric March as the head of the terrorized family; the roles on Broadway had been played respectively by Paul Newman and Karl Malden. (Malden to March wasn't so much of a stretch -- but Newman to Bogart!) Signed by Author .