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We list the ISBN from "The Osterman Weekend." World and a few other publishers had a brilliant idea in the early 1970s -- "Let's use the new plastics technology to create CLEAR plastic dust jackets. We'll print the title and stuff in white -- we can even print the AUTHOR PHOTO as a pattern of little white dots that'll be basically invisible till they're wrapped around the darker-colored book. It'll be so cool!" So why doesn't anyone do this, any more? Because clear Mylar (at least we suspect it's Mylar, not one of the newer polyethylenes that retains its "plasticity" a tad better) grows brittle before too many years elapse, and these things start to crack and splinter. That wouldn't be so bad if the title, author, and "flap" copy were printed on the book itself. But NOTHING is printed to boards or flaps, to this copy of "Osterman Weekend," except an American flag with white hammer and sickle -- making it hard to just toss the brittle plastic jacket. This jacket -- which carries title, author photo, etc. -- has predictably grown somewhat brittle with age and shows tears and chips to most corners. Three small pieces of Scotch "Magic" tape have been applied to verso of front panel near top to prevent a crack there from expanding any further. Fortunately, text on jacket is not impinged and jacket remains 98 percent intact, which is far better than usually found. Front board resists opening past 60 degrees; book would thus normally grade "fine as-new," though there is minor rub to all four corners. Copyright page states "First printing -- 1972," and there is NO book club deboss to rear board, but there is also NO price to unclipped jacket front flap, and jacket rear panel is coded 7452 to bottom. Verso of half title lists only "The Scarlatti Inheritance" as "Also by Robert Ludlum." We cannot find any definitive statement from World Publishing or its parent, Times Mirror, as to what all this signifies, but the absence of a price to jacket flap -- and the fact that rear panel is coded 7452 (possibly indicating a 1974 printing), NOT A3918 as on our known first/first, lead us to conclude this copy of "Osterman" is probably a Book Club Edition. Early entry by the fellow who would go on the bring us (in 1980) "The Bourne Identity." Spies and killers in suburban New Jersey? Tell us it ain't so! "The Osterman Weekend" was filmed in 1983 by director Sam Peckinpah -- his final film before he died in 1984. The film starred Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Burt Lancaster, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster, Chris Sarandon, and Craig T. Nelson. The film was not well received, critics complaining that it literally made no sense. The book at 315 pp., here reduced from $37. OUR SECOND TITLE, "The Scarlatti Inheritance," states "First Printing -- 1971." No ISBN found. First novel ("action-adventure," of course) by the same author who would go on to create "The Bourne Identity." Again, except for spine titling, NOTHING is printed on the book itself, here, except a decorative swastika -- making it hard to just toss the brittle plastic jacket. This jacket retains all its text -- including author photo to rear panel and $6.95 price to front flap -- but a pair of 1-X-2-inch chunks are missing from top left and bottom right of front panel -- call the surviving original clear plastic jacket on this copy of "The Scarlatti Inheritance" "good only." Pages moderately age-toned to edges. 359 pp., here reduced from $16. First two published novels by Robert Ludlum, in original clear plastic jackets which are growing brittle as usual, combined into a lot to consolidate shipping charge, the pair now reduced from $20.
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