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SIGNED by AUTHOR! A Beautiful book! First Edition, First Printing, Number-line to # 1 (Putnam,1989) **UNREAD** Signed by Tom Clancy on the half-title page, his name only. Black 1/4 over Gray Hardcovers are As New, sharp corners. Spine is As New, Perfect gold lettering; NO concavity at all, RARE in this respect! Pages are Fine, clean with no writing, no folding, the toning always associated with this title due to the paper quality used. Page edges are excellent, very clean. Dust Jacket is Fine minus, Light wear to one corner and some very light wrinkle to the spine end area. HOWEVER: This is one of the most difficult jackets in the world of modern book collecting. This is the more desirable Copper colored jacket, the other being a "boring" silver. These jackets usually have severe de-lamination of the clear coat at the edges, this one has only one small area. These Copper colored jackets are also prone to severe fading. This particular jacket has NO FADING at all. Extremely rare in this respect! Appropriate Price intact, Protected in a custom-fit clear archival cover. NOTE: This dust Jacket was produced in a Silver version and a Copper version, both are considered First State. **It would be very difficult or impossible to find a better example!** **I am a collector also and know all too well what it is like receiving a book "Not as described". This does not happen here. I am passionate about honesty, quality and customer satisfaction. I have a NO DISAPPOINTMENT policy. My books are always graded accurately, cleaned if necessary and then carefully shipped in very well-padded boxes and always smoke and odor free.**

A Fine copy of the first edition, first printing in a Fine dust jacket, SIGNED BY TOM CLANCY on the half-title, TOGETHER WITH AN ORIGINAL SIGNED LETTER FROM TOM CLANCY TO THE WIDOW OF JOHN BALL TO WHOM THIS BOOK WAS DEDICATED. The letter is in excellent condition and shows two horizontal folds for mailing and some slight bending to its upper left corner. The book itself is sharp, unfaded, with bright gilt lettering and is without the concavity to the spine that plagues most copies and the dust jacket has only a tiny bit of loss to the laminate (another matter that we frequently have seen on this dust jacket) and some wear to the extremities at the spine ends and to the edges where the spine turns to each flap. [In spite of such small flaws, this is easily the nicest example of the dust jacket that we ever have seen. The book's first edition was published both in a silver jacket and in a bronze jacket, and, to us, the bronze jacket is measurably the more attractive of the two.] The book comes with a SIGNED personal letter from Tom Clancy to his widow [Patricia Hamilton Ball]. Dated February 11, 1989, Clancy addressed it to "Mrs. John Ball" and used as his salutation "Dear Mrs. Ball". He tells her that "News of John's death caught me very short indeed.", mentions that his days have been frantic since John Ball's death (on October 15, 1988 at age 77) and tells her that ".I've had little chance to reflect on the gravity of your loss. I can only address my own." He mentions that he met John Ball only once although he had read many of Ball's books had felt that he had known him for many years. He then stated: "The original was far more impressive than his reflection, and I deem myself fortunately to have shared even a few hours with him." [We presume that Clancy meant to write "fortunate" rather than "fortunately". He then asks Mrs. Ball if he could dedicate his next book to Ball and provides her with the text of his proposed Dedication. The Dedication in the book is exactly what Clancy proposed to her. Thus, we have here a remarkably nice copy of this noted Clancy work in a wonderful example of the dust jacket, with the book SIGNED BY CLANCY TOGETHER WITH AN ORIGINAL TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY CLANCY ON HIS PERSONAL STATIONARY FROM WHICH HE MUST HAVE RECEIVED PERMISSION TO USE THE DEDICATION THAT HE PROPOSED TO HIS FRIEND'S WIDOW TO BE USED. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE BOOK AND THE ACCOMPANYING LETTER (both of which are signed by Tom Clancy) IS DEEP AND INTIMATE. [The book's Dedication to Ball is , in part, a clear reference John Ball's earlier novel "Last Plane Out". A REMARKABLE PAIRING RELATING TO TWO PROMINENT NOVELISTS. RARE INDEED.John Dudley Ball (July 8, 1911 — October 15, 1988), writing as John Ball, was an American writer best known for mystery novels involving the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. He was introduced in the 1965 In the Heat of the Night where he solves a murder in a racist Southern small town. It won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America and was made into an Oscar-winning film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier; the film had two sequels, and spawned a television series several decades later, none of which were based on Ball's later Tibbs stories.Ball was born in Schenectady, New York, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He wrote for a number of magazines and newspapers, including the Brooklyn Eagle. For a time he worked part-time as a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, was trained in martial arts, and was a nudist. In the mid 1980s, he was the book review columnist for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Ball lived in Encino, California, and died there in 1988.Ball's "Last Plane Out" consists of two stories which share characters and then meld together. The first involves a group of travelers in a troubled Third World country, waiting for the last plane out, which they hope will carry them to safety. The second