L. W. Currey, Inc.

Blochman, Lawrence Goldtree. A KISS FOR BELINDA [a.k.a. A KISS OF KANDAHAR] [short story]. Typed manuscript. 22 leaves, plus two inserts and a title leaf marked "Final Draft," carbon copy. Final draft, a few penciled corrections and edits in red ink. Published in KEYHOLE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, June 1960. A Dr. Coffee detective story. Collected as "A Kiss of Kandahar" in CLUES FOR DR. COFFEE (1964). "Although most of his work is (regrettably) long out of print and he is little known among modern readers, Lawrence G. Blochman (1900-1975) was an innovative and popular writer for more than four decades ... Blochman's most notable creations ... are his short stories (for such magazines as COLLIER'S and ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE) and one novel featuring Dr. Daniel Webster Coffee, pathologist of the Pasteur Hospital in mythical Northbank, New York. Coffee was the first pathologist detective in crime fiction, the forefather of TV's 'Quincy,' and his cases have a uniform sense of realism as a result of Blochman's interest and research in forensic medicine. DIAGNOSIS HOMICIDE (1950), the first of two Dr. Coffee collections, is of sufficient import that Ellery Queen included it as the 106th and final entry on his Queen's Quorum list of most important volumes of detective short stories." - Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, p. 67. Probably the setting copy. Leaves frayed, mostly along fore-edges, a couple of pages creased and/or dog-eared at corners, good overall. (#157240).

Price: $150.00