The Right to Kill

London: Herbert Jenkins, 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Good. The author's first book as Ryan (and second novel overall, after Tyranny of Virtue by "Noel Despard"). The novel, with its dreamlike third-person narration, explores the idea of justifiable homicide and the sexual mores of the 1920s. A contemporary review described the book: "The Right to Kill is more of a problem than a detective story, but the situation it present-that of a detective who when sent to investigate a crime finds that it involves a former mistress and his own illegitimate daughter-is developed with skill and ingenuity" (quoted from the Liverpool Daily Post, July 1, 1936).

Ryan's many books mostly drifted into obscurity until the 1980s when genre fiction critics began to rediscover him. First edition (states "First published 1936" on the copyright page, with no indication of later printings). A very good copy in the publisher's orange cloth-covered boards (hardcover). This copy is one of the few surviving copies with a dust jacket, here restored to reattach the front panel at the spine, some infill along the top edge, and a long repaired tear on the front panel. There is also skillful infill and repainting of the spine ends. An attractive copy of a vanishingly scarce jacket, correctly priced on the spine at 7'6.