Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Living Death by Jon Messman

A new kind of enemy. A new kind of destruction. As Nick Carter becomes the decoy in a deadly game of biological warfare.

1972 Award Edition
The Target: The best scientific minds in the world.
The Weapon: Secret, undetectable, and always fatal.

Tandem Editions
Seven of the world's most brilliant scientists had suddenly become vegetables. Living dead men whose brains had been butchered by an unknown source. This was a new enemy. Experimenting with germ warfare. Doing its horrifying work with brutal effectiveness. It was Nick Carter's job to find out who was behind this terror. Even if it meant using himself as bait for an unseen opponent whose lethal discoveries might well condemn him to The Living Death

Award Editions
As usual Nick Carter was prepared for action and primed to kill, But this time killing was the easy part. The action was something else. It came in the form of an English Blonde, a stacked sexual Italian, and a sultry Swiss packages that could drive any man wild or out of his mind. Or in the case of Nick, give him a definite head start towards certain death. 


Printing History
Written by Jon Messman

Award Series
1st (A496X) Sept 1969
2nd (A922S) Jan 1972
3rd (AN1103) 1973?
4th (AQ1561) March 1976
Charter (unkn) 1981

Tandem Editions
1st (426 4247) 1969/1970
Reprint (unkn) 1971
Reprint (unkn) Dec 1972
Universal Reprint (426 17312) 1977

Notes
Award missed the 3rd printing information in the 4th printing fly sleeve. It looks like the first UK printing was in 1970 as mentioned on the UK copyright page from 1977, but the  US edition mentions a joint 1969 Award/Tandem first printing.


1 comment:

  1. This blog is a constant reminder of how much I loved these books when I was in high school and college. Thanks! This one and THE HUMAN TIME BOMB were two of my favorites from that era of the series. Although at the time I had no idea who was writing the books, now I know that many of the ones I liked the best were by Jon Messman.

    ReplyDelete