Virgil's Ghost 1990 First Edition/First Printing Mystery DJ

A particularly nice first-edition copy of the third Lenny Schwartz mystery, following Tailor's Dummy and Hampton Heat. Former NYPD detective Schwartz has left the force and turned private investigator when Carter Hayes hires him to investigate the grotesque death of his son Virgil, a mathematician found mutilated and painted after apparently dying of AIDS. The case expands into a deliberately strange mixture of New York noir, espionage, nuclear politics, sexuality, and Schwartz' unresolved guilt over his own police career. Contemporary Publishers Weekly noted Weinman's strength in character invention and his "literate prose," while describing a plot involving a CIA cover-up and nuclear armament. An unusual literary-crime novel of the late Cold War/AIDS era rather than a conventional procedural. Copyright page states "First Edition: January 1990" and carries the complete number line 10-1, establishing the first printing. This agrees with bibliographical records for the Fawcett Columbine first edition. The jacket retains its original price and is unclipped. Condition: Book - Near Fine. Dust Jacket - Very Good+ to Near Fine. Black cloth-backed gray boards remain clean and square, with strong spine lettering and only negligible shelf evidence. Interior is clean, bright and firmly bound, with no ownership markings. The pale gray jacket is particularly unforgiving of handling, making this relatively clean example attractive. Weinman, born in Boston in 1937, was educated at Trinity College Dublin and Cambridge University and worked as a university lecturer in English, dividing his time between London and Key West according to the contemporary author biography. His academic/literary background helps explain the novel's unusually erudite texture: the book opens with Dante's Inferno, Canto XXXIII, lines 94-99, followed by Weinman's own English translation - a revealing bit of authorial apparatus for what was marketed as a mystery novel.