Fine condition.Little,Brown & co,1998.First UK edition-first printing.Grey hardback(gilt lettering to the spine,small nick on the edge of the front cover) with Dj(small tear on the edge of the back Dj cover,two creases and nicks on the edges of the Dj cover),both in fine condition.Nice and clean pages as new with two pencil marks impressions on the edge of the first blank page of the book,a couple of small nicks and a crease on the edges of the pages.Nice and clean book with light shelf wear on the Dj cover.421pp.Price un-clipped.Heavy book. This is another paragraph Review : You know what happens right after Casablanca's Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) walks off with Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains) into the mist? This novel. Walsh, a former crime reporter and Time magazine music critic, can't equal the beautiful relationships in the classic film, but he does give us a clever takeoff on the tale, with less romance but much more action. As Time Goes By is both a prequel and a sequel, fleshing out Rick's mysterious life by flashing back to his 1930s New York gangland past and taking us with him, Ilsa, and Sam the piano man as they plot to kill Reinhard Heydrich, the Hangman of Prague. Rick Blaine started out as Yitzik Baline, who learned to shoot in the booze-fueled underworld of Tick-Tock Shapiro and Dion O'Hanlon. A fracas that made Walter Winchell's column explains why Rick wound up in the Casablanca gin joint. Ilsa undertakes to seduce Heydrich--chastely, if at all possible--and set him up for the kill. (He was the only top Nazi the Allies bumped off.)