This rare and beautiful book is in NEAR MINT condition with no markings inside or out and no attached bookplates. The exterior color of the spine is lightly faded, presumably from sitting on a shelf with sunlight. Otherwise, this rare beauty is LIKE NEW.

This book is the genuine leather version, not to be confused with the much more common but still quite rare leatherette one. The distinction is easily made by the silk ribbon bookmark sewn into the real leather version. This also applies to the other books in the Franklin Mystery Library series. Basically, each book has two versions of the same edition. They look very similar, but the binding is different; the leather versions all have the ribbon bookmark, whereas the cheaper and much more common versions do not. This is the easiest way to differentiate between them. The leather versions are much rarer and more sought-after and typically sell for multiples of the price of the common leatherette ones. Most book collectors and you who are reading this likely know all this, but I sell both styles of these books, and it has to be made clear for those who may not know that there even is a difference, and why two books that appear to be the same are priced so differently.