my reply was for montalbano directly. He has K&R which lays a foundation of the language. Maybe you're right and this builds off of that as a #2 type of book, so you could be right there.

Safety-critical and security-critical are interesting for an intro book. I'd like people to be aware, and conscious of of them. Anyways, we could debate this one. It really depends on how paranoid a beginner programmer becomes.