Requiem for a Redhead

New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953. 8vo, pp. 276. Original pale green quarter boards, lettered in red on dark green to spine. Leading edge uncut. Illustrated dust jacket, photographic portrait of the author to rear panel. Small bookseller's label to rear pastedown, slight discoloration along lower edge of front panel. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket, a little faded at spine, and with a little light edgewear. First edition of the author's first novel, and the first in the Gregory Keen series. The black Australian Lindsay Hardy [1914-1994] began adult life as a salesman before enlisting in 1939; he suffered shrapnel injuries to his legs at Alamein, and permanent damage to his left arm from a Japanese grenade in New Guinea. He moved to the US after the war, suffered the usual writer's nightmare in Hollywood, and left for New York to write Requiem for a Redhead, drawing on the radio series featuring Gregory Keen he'd written in Australia. Refused residential status in the US, he spent time in the UK writing thrillers for the BBC and ITV in the early 1960s, and seems to have stopped writing shortly thereafter. Still waiting to be discovered, his books remain affordable. Requiem for a Redhead was cheaply filmed in the UK in 1956 as Assignment Redhead. HUBIN, p. 193 (where Hardy's central character is misspelt 'Keene')