Macdonald & Co., London, 1968, 1^st UK Edition.  ISBN 0-356-02364-8.  Hard cover, 208 pages.  Very good; black boards with gold lettering on spine; top spine end very gently pushed; binding tight.  Dust jacket with price intact has light edge, corner and spine wear, some light rubs and scratches, very short edge tear at lower rear panel.  Prior owner’s name and date inked on FEP; remainder of interior clean and unmarked.  Author’s third novel.  ‘Julian Prim is an obnoxious young man.  He is egocentric, rude, disdainful, his emotional development aborted.  He is also a chess master, who for eleven of his nineteen years has devoted nearly every thought, every passion to conquering a small fraction of the billions of possible variations that exist in this ancient game of mock warfare.  His singleness of purpose has paid off, for he has a good chance of taking the U.S. Chess Championship away from its current holder, Eugene Berlin. …Yet unknown to Rafe, softening influences are at work on Julian.  Rafe’s daughter Rebecca breaks Julian’s obsessive concentration and shares with him the hesitant and nascent feelings of first love.  His emotional flowering may help to make Julian a better human being, but it may at the same time jeopardize his chance to achieve the object of his life – to become the world’s greatest chess master.’ (from flaps)