THE BLACK AND THE RED: A Homer Evans Murder Mystery

N.Y.: Random House, Inc., 1956. 1st edition, so stated. Near fine in near fine dust jacket, not price clipped, $2.75 price intact, in protective mylar cover. Light soiling at rear jacket with black top-stained upper page edges spotted. Very clean unfaded gray cloth boards with black title box, gold lettering and decoration on spine. "John Dickson Carr and others pioneered mystery as slapstick; Elliot Paul merged the genre with surreal farce, with dozens of of continuing eccentric characters tumbling from book to book in ever more outlandish situations, all unified by the superhuman (but never stuffy) figure of Homer Evans." -- Encyclopedia Mysteriosa by William DeAndrea. Trust Homer Evans, that epicurean among detectives, to chose Las Vegas, Nevada, as the newest field for his unorthodox investigations into murder and assorted skullduggeries. In the American capital of sky-high gambling and lavish entertainment, of explosions--temperamental and nuclear--of gangsters and atomic scientists, the imperturbable sleuth unravels a mystery that is a sinister as it is wildly fanciful. The touch of madness in Elliot Paul's method adds to his extravaganzas of crime the fillip of satire and the zest of his own riotous imagination. As capricious and unpredictable as the roll of the dice or the fall of the roulette ball, The Black and the Red pays off at fabulous odds. The reader is the winner!. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Illus. by Tobey, Barney. Book.