Books: Missing Chapter
Four years ago, ship-bored sailors on a U.S. transport near Samoa ran across a ravaged English thriller. Its somewhat peremptory title: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. The high-strung, blood-&-guts story furnished so fine a busman's holiday that they dismembered it, passed it around chapter by chapter. To their horror, they found that the last two chapters had gone overboard.
Most of the men went down with their ship in the Solomons without ever resolving their suspense. But two years later, one survivor was still scouring around after those last two chapters (TIME, Nov. 20, 1944). He was out of luck unless he sent to England, where the book was published in 1940, and sold 232,000 copies.
Last week Publishers Rinehart & Co. (who had read about the sailor's trouble in TIME) satisfied his curiosity and hoped to whet a lot of other people's, by bringing out the first U.S. edition.*
In this story of thugs and trulls, enough sin and mayhem occurs (or is about to) on every page to remind U.S. readers of James M. Cain. The complete, animal innocence of its heroa sort of Id with pants downis funny, scary, and fascinating. But the sailor is not going to like the two missing chapters. After raising the promise of Cain for the first 207 pages, Author Butler subsides into a tea-and-marmalade finish.
*Kiss the Blood Off My Hands; Gerald Butler ($2.50).
Most Popular »
- Did a Time-Traveling Bird Sabotage the Collider?
- Former Nazi Hitman, 88, Finally Stands Trial
- Recession Sparks Global Shoplifting Spree
- The Rogue Returns: On the Road with Sarah Palin
- FBI Fights Claims It Ignored Intel on Hasan
- Obama's Fort Hood Speech: Lost in Translation
- Volunteer Vets: Returning Troops Still Want to Serve
- Michael Jackson's $1 Million Funeral: The Breakdown
- 21-Year-Old Wins World Series of Poker
- Why Sexism Kills
- Did a Time-Traveling Bird Sabotage the Collider?
- Michael Jackson's $1 Million Funeral: The Breakdown
- Recession Sparks Global Shoplifting Spree
- Maclaren's Stroller Recall: A Stumbling Response Online
- After the Recession, an Energy Crisis Could Loom
- Are You Getting Scammed by Facebook Games?
- Volunteer Vets: Returning Troops Still Want to Serve
- I Love Local Commercials
- Did the Army Ignore Red Flags Because of Hasan's Religion?
- Why Sexism Kills







RSS