Danger is Their Business

by Marjorie and Edward Ward

Cassell and Company, 1955, [First Edition], black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners gift inscription to front endpaper; clipped dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, chipping and small tears (see photographs)

“During the cool hours after midnight in a barren desert land of blazing heat, the last inches of cap rock were bored at the Naft Safid oil-well No. 20 in south-wet Persia.  Before the high-pressure gas could be brought under control it screamed up the well-casing in an ear-splitting fury of sound and exploded into flame.  A quarter of a mile away the roar was so great that men could not hear themselves shout; the well was a roaring furnace which could go on blazing for forty years.  Myron Kinley was 7,500 miles away when the request came for his assistance.  Sixty years old, a tall heavy weight Texan, he travels the world alone putting out oil-well fires.  At the time of the Rig 20 fire, he had already had more than two hundred spectacular successes.
The story of how he fought this one of the biggest oil fires in history, is the first of six thrilling accounts of how other people earn their livings the hard way.  Alex Kerr spends his time training lions and tigers; if you want to know how to make a lion do just what you want him to do Alex can, and does, tell you.  Crash Kavanagh gets paid for crashing cars and aircraft in suicidal exploits to give thrills to film fans…”