THE NIGHT OF THE SCORPION

First edition, first printing. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original Jeremy Ford illustrated boards. A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm with a little bumping at the extremities. The contents, with some dust marking to the top edge of the text block are otherwise clean throughout.

Inscribed by the author in blue ink on the front endpaper "For mother, / my most fearsome critic, / love, / Anthony 5.4.85". The second of The Pentagram chronicles featuring Martin Hopkins. An important presentation copy from the author to his beloved mother. Horowitz has made no secret of the fact that his wealthy but largely unhappy and brutal childhood compelled him to write for children as it allowed him to relive the formative years he never had. His father, a businessman and political fixer, who despite a love of literature and assembling an extensive library himself, ridiculed the commercial viability of his son's desire to become a writer. Sadly he died [and with him the whereabouts of the family fortune, never to be recovered] the year before his son's first book was accepted for publication. Horowitz describes his mother as an extraordinary woman whom he adored, encouraging his interest in reading and writing, and in his teens introducing him to classic horror novels such as Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The bestselling author has gone on to become one of the UK's most successful and sought after genre novelists and screenwriters creating new adventures for Ian Fleming's James Bond, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and writing for Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot!