Nightmare, with Angel

376 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter black cloth with gilt lettering to spine over black boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Plucked from her German mother and forced to live with a chilly English father who's often away from their ramshackle house on a lonely stretch of coast, 11-year-old Marianne Cadogan sticks like an unwanted burr to Ryan O'Donnell, the rough-living loner who rescued her and her dog from the sea. After running away, she entraps Ryan into trekking with her to Germany to find her mother, a tortured woman sinking low among the worst kind of flesh peddlers. But buzzing in Ryan's mind--and alarming police who mount an international search for the twosome--is his memory of murdering a girl much like Marianne. The question is whether her dogged innocence will mean a chance for redemption for Ryan--or ruination. Slow set-ups undercut the climactic scenes in this psychological thriller by a bestselling British writer making his American hardcover debut. Spiced with sexual violence, dark secrets and one-note villains, the book limps along as tension repeatedly tightens then perceptibly loosens its grip. The publisher is marketing this book with a ``special introductory price,'' which may attract readers. Condition: A near fine copy in a fine jacket.