Hold Back the Dawn

Title: Hold Back the Dawn
Genre: Fiction
Author: Ketti Frings (1909-1981)
Publisher: Triangle Books, New York, New York
Year: 1943 (eighth printing; originally published 1940)
Pages: 346
Format: Hardcover with dust jacket
Provenance: Unknown, contains a beautiful Ex Libris sticker on the inside front cover with no indication of previous owner's name.
From the Dust Jacket: "Klaus Eckert, whose lovely American wife, Jennifer, drives down from Hollywood every week-end; Lankowski, Polish pianist and his wife; Irmgard, whose lover has deserted her; Emil Klabec, who was once one of the wealthiest men in Czechoslovakia, and his desperately efficient wife; the Old Man and the Kid, strange pair; and finally the irrepressible bounding Tibor Szolinay—a big handsome bundle of bad news."
Opening Sentence: "Tijuana in the bright light of a busy Sunday afternoon is an old whore come to life again."
Random Passage: "Further words were impossible. Mr. Steele leaned back, braced his feet. The car shot down the dusty street, people and animals scattering. Klaus took the first curve up the hill and onto the main highway at full speed."
Goodreads Review:
Notes: Torrid novel of a foreign-born playboy in Tijuana attempting to gain access to U.S. citizenship. The dust jacket promotes the 1941 Paramount Pictures adaptation starring Paulette Goddard, Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland.