A 1001 Midnights Review: WILLIAM H. HALLAHAN – The Ross Forgery.

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Bill Pronzini WILLIAM H. HALLAHAN – The Ross Forgery. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1973. Avon, paperback, 1975. The Ross Forgery, Hallahan’s second novel, is an unusual bibliomystery with a compelling and ingenious premise. New York typographer Edgar Ross, one of those brilliant but unsuccessful types, is approached by tycoon Emmett O’ Kane, who wants him to create a forgery of a nineteen thcentury folio by Thomas Wise. O’Kane’s stated reason: to show up a fellow collector and tycoon from Texas named Thomas Long Pickett, who has the world’s most complete collection of Wise pamphlets. Wise — a real person — was a famous British bibliophile who amassed one of the largest private libraries of the century; he also published, over a forty-year period, some fifty first editions of obscure works by major Victorian writers. It wasn’t until just before his death that those “first editions” were revealed as forgeries and Wise was unmasked as the greatest literary forger…