---------trade paperback, Near Fine, unread, no hardcover edition, the Penguin edition precedes the American ONYX / NAL edition, another Special X thriller mystery, signed by Slade on the title page, --- When Penguin started the print run for this, they did not realize that there was a major error in their production. 12 full pages of text were duplicated within the book. Nothing was omitted from the book, just duplicated. The promotional tour for this book had just started when the error was discovered. Penguin decided to recall and pulp all of the flawed copies and rather than correcting the error, they simply went to a 2nd printing, quickly ----- most signed copies are the 2nd printing as these were put out for the promotional tour . The majority of the copies of the Canadian edition, which is the true 1st edition, are 2nd printings -----it is reported that only about 100 copies of the erroneous first escaped being pulped., THIS IS a SIGNED COPY of the 1st EDITION, 2nd PRINTING, any image directly beside this listing is the actual book and not a generic photo