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BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper

ISBN-13: 978-1954321984
List Price: $17.99 U.S.
Pages: 170
Published: 2023
Dead Man Running (1960)
John Blackburn

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Book Description

The Russians want Peter Carlin for his top secret weapons plans. The British want him for the murder of his wife – a crime he didn’t commit. Now he must find a way to flee Soviet Russia and return home to find the real killer – without being killed or arrested on the way. But he may not be prepared for the shocking truth he will discover about his wife’s tragic demise ...

John Blackburn’s fourth novel Dead Man Running (1960) is a gripping Cold War thriller that will have readers on the edge of their seats.

reviews

"Swift, sure, and exciting ... harrowing escapes, devious characters, black villainy and a friend in need make an absorbing book." – Boston Sunday Herald

"A neat little package of horror – beautifully sustained ... frighteningly realistic. Don't start reading too late in the evening, especially if you're alone." – San Francisco Examiner

"Blackburn's choicest work of contemporary horror ... a frontrunner in the mystery field and well worth the hour or two it takes to read it." – Pensacola News Journal

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

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John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. He started attending Haileybury College near London in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.

It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.

"We owe a debt of gratitude to the publisher Valancourt, whose aim is to resurrect some neglected works of literature, especially those incorporating a supernatural strand, and make them available to a new readership." 
- Times Literary Supplement

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