AFTER THE LAST RACE
First printing of a scarce and early Koontz crime thriller in the gritty noir mode.
Fine in near-fine jacket.
Price: $200.00
AFTER THE LAST RACE
"The bookshelves were crammed to overflowing with old pulp magazines—mysteries, science fiction, suspense, romance, westerns, fantasy—and the more recent paperback books which had been published over the last thirty years."
Early Koontz crime novel in the Dick Francis milieu, featuring an arsonist, a murderer, a gambler, a detective, a race track manager, the "stunningly sexy and corrupt woman who wants to destroy him," and an underworld supplier who runs guns out of a well-described used bookstore. The author's second "major" novel, following 1973's HANGING ON. By the early 1970s, Koontz had published dozens of paperback originals in various disreputable genres under various other pseudonyms; his greatest success and enduring fame would come in the horror boom of the 1980s and after. Always prolific, AFTER THE LAST RACE was one of three novels Koontz published in the same year, and the only one to be issued under his own name.
The Object
First edition. New York: Atheneum, 1974. 8.5'' x 5.5''. Original quarter magenta cloth with blue paper boards, silver-lettered spine. In original unclipped ($8.95) dust jacket, designed by Don and Ann Crews. Ochre endpapers. [14], 297, [5] pages. Penciled date to front endpaper. Light corner creases to jacket flaps, with some mild toning, shallow edgewear, and a few traces of soil to panels.
The Fine Print
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