Published by The World Publishing Company, New York, 1971
Seller: Kubik Fine Books Ltd., ABAA, Dayton, OH, U.S.A.
Signed
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. 133p. A black cloth hardcover ex-library book in original binding. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the front free endpaper. Label residue on spine and stain on front cover. Label and card pocket on rear endpaper and stamp on title page. Otherwise, very good condition with text clean and binding tight.
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Inscribed first edition of this well-meaninged if somewhat naive memoir about "the havoc caused by drugs," written by a Roman Catholic priest based on several years spent accompanying members of the New York City Narcotics Squad on outcalls around the city. Despite its sensationalistic title, Melody for the most part skirts the alarmism and sermonizing that plague so many anti-drug tracts of the day, instead constructing his book around a series of vivid incidents he witnessed while out on patrol: breaking up a group of hippies in Washington Square Park, discovering a dead body in a heroin den-cum-poolroom, venturing into a late-night psychedelic dancehall known for dosing its patrons with LSD-spiked coke, being assaulted and shot at while attempting to intervene on behalf of an eighteen year-old heroin addict, etc. An interesting look at 1960s drug culture. First edition. SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Melody on the front free endpaper. Octavo (5.5 x 8.25 in.); 133pp.; black cloth boards, metallic red spine titles, in dust jacket. About near fine (mild foxing to textblock fore-edge, former owner's name stamped on front and rear endpapers and pastedowns) in a very good (+) jacket, sunned from brown to amber along spine panel. Inscribed by Author(s).