Comment: A mystery set in Morocco. Foreverness writes that it is based on traveling Morocco in 1957. [ref] The novel was awarded the prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category “Best First Novel by an American Author”. Actually Vance had published two mystery novels earlier, but used for those the pseudonyms Peter Held and Alan Wade respectively, while The Man in the Cage was published under his full name John Holbrook Vance.

The Man in the Cage has a number of favorable user reviews on Amazon. [ref] Hector DeJean writes that Vance had a knack for exotic cultural settings and gives a sketch of Morocco that is “...enough to keep hold the story together, without being excessively wordy. [ref]

Filmed for television as an episode in the TV series Thriller as Man in the Cage, 1961. [imdb title]

Republished as The Man in the Cage, Spatterlight, 2012.

Comment:

Originally published in a limited edition. (ref)

Quotes:

Betty laughed self-consciously. “Just a little hair-pulling. Nothing serious.” In retrospect the fight seemed almost fun. There had been a wide-open sensation, a wildness and abandon, that she had never known before.

Betty went to the other side of the deck, sank into a chair, sat looking across the wind-whipped sea. Everything was gray: the sky, the sea, the ship. She thought of home, the cheerful green and white house under the oak trees; the familiar living room, the comfortable chairs, the book shelves, the fireplace. Fervently she wished she were there.

Republished by Spatterlight, The Dark Ocean, 2012