[Signed] The Devil to Pay : American Soldier of Fortune in Castro's Revolution (inscribed first printing) Moore, Robin [Near Fine] [Hardcover]

Coward McCann, New York. 1961. 320 pages. First edition, first printing. Book is about fine with slight toning along panel edges. $4.50 price intact on DJ flap with 5 open chips. This is a signed association copy, by author Robin Moore. Moore, ever the flamboyant author who was the son of the man who founded the Sheraton Hotel chain, was Harvard-educated, and where he became close pals with Robert F. Kennedy. He then went on to pen the best sellers the Green Berets and The French Connection, among others, the latter of which translated incredibly well to the silver screen. Moore's inscription on the front endpaper reads: For ___, As we sit (so often and in a bittersweet mood we seem to do this) at Idlewild waiting for a plane to take me away. Love, Robin. Idlewild, March 30, 1961. All things point to this being an intimate association copy as the dated inscription coincides with the publishing of this new title. Mr. Moore's inscription reads as though the two of them are waiting together at the airport for him to leave, again, from the airport that would be renamed JFK, in NYC, in tribute to Moore's close pal's brother's assassination. Ironically, this very story tells the story of a hired American mercenary tangled-up in Castro's revolution; and this book's inscription is dated only 17 days before Moore's Harvard pals would order the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. It makes you wonder where Mr. Moore was headed to, after penning this inscription at the airport, for a book chronicling the firsthand secret exploits of an American soldier of fortune intertwined with the Castro brothers, and who it turns out would be the focus of a failed coup attempt by the author's Harvard pals, just seventeen days later. Hmmm.