Paperback 353: Blue City / Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) (Dell 363)

Paperback 353: Dell 363 (1st, 1947)

Title: Blue City
Author: Kenneth Millar
Cover artist: Uncredited (a shame)

Yours for: $23


Best things about this cover:

• I'm not sure there is a cover out there that better expresses the idea of "noir." The grimy fatalism of the urban jungle perfectly expressed by that pollution/hand working all the lowlifes like marionettes. That woman's right boob is freaking me out a little, and the gangster's proportions are all wrong, but all the classic vices are on display, and that hand is going to give me nightmares. The skin on the knuckles, my god ...

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoever designed that city Really liked right angles.
• Nice detail on the buildings [/sarcasm]
• This book is in a plastic slipcase. I would have taken it out, but I feared I might harm the book in doing so, so parts of the back remain obscured somewhat by the thick plastic strip down the middle. And the ID tag.

Page 123~

"You won't sing," Kerch said, "if what we do to you shuts you up for good. Come along, Floraine. You'll need a coat."

"You'll need a coat" makes me laugh. Cold-blooded hitman worries you might get chilly.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 54

Title: The Unsuspected (Pocket 444, 4th ptg, 1947)
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $10

• Claude Rains will kick your ass in a Dramatic Staring competition ... although the zombie in the prudish nightgown has some serious skills as well.
• Love the fact that the background picture has those horizontal lines that makes it look like it's a photo of an 80s TV screen a la "Max Headroom." Gives the whole cover an awesome '80s music video vibe. It's like when Aretha and George Michael sang in front of giant screen images of themselves. Am I remembering that correctly? ... uh, sort of.

• "Terror and Suspense" = copywriter says "Fuck this shit, I'm going out drinking. Who's with me?"

Page 123~

"My object is ... that you don't die. I believe that if I show this little paper in certain places, it will tend to lengthen your life." He looked at her insolently. No, not insolently, but with a reckless look, a gambling look.

First, what? Second, I love a writer who leaves in her failed attempts at accurate description. "No, not insolently ... what was I thinking? Stupid Charlotte. Stupid stupid ..."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 44

Title: False to Any Man (Bantam 80, 2nd ptg, 1947)
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: "Kohs"

Yours for: $8

• When the Bride of Frankenstein sleeps, she dreams of the facades of junior high schools.
• I sort of like the torn cover effect, but the rest — it's both nonsensical and ugly. The color scheme alone is a nightmare.
• "Colonel Primrose" already sounds like someone I'd like to kick in the balls.

• If only this book were about a "gimlet-eyed" cat.
• Always sad when the original cover is light years better, design-wise, than the paperback.

Page 123~

"He sure am smart, ain' he?" William said, with quite genuine enthusiasm.

In case you were still entertaining some idea of actually reading anything written by this woman...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 8-11

A Mess of March ... I'm moving all the NGAIO MARSH titles to the front of the queue (literally, Roger Daltrey sang the word "queue" as I typed it just now ... freaky coincidence) because one of my readers seems to have a thing for her :)

Book 8: Singing in the Shrouds (Berkley, 1960)
Cover artist: photo?

• A book that takes on the collapsing telecommunications system, apparently
• Her miniskirt has its own miniarm.

• Finally, someone has tamed the wild, native, animalistic mystery novel and made it "civilized literature." Where's my houseboy with the tea!?

Book 9: Death of a Peer (Pocket 475, 1947)
Cover artist: Aargh, uncredited

• This lady's got Fear Hand (TM). In fact, she appears to have a double case of it.
• Ouch. Skeleton key to the eye. That's gotta hurt.

• Well if it's WEALTHY, of course we care...

Book 10: Death of a Fool (Avon T-254, late '50s)
Cover artist: Uncredited

• Fear Hand! (TM)
• Jenny recoils in horror as she sees that her gardener has failed to blow all the leaves off her front lawn. And squirrels on her bird-feeders!? Oh, the humanity.

• Inspector Alleyn arrives to cut through the heathen nonsense of the simple souls. Civilization! God save the Queen, wot!

Book 11: Swing, Brother, Swing (Pocket 762, 1951)
Cover artist: Lew Keller

• "Swing, Brother, Swing ... for Hepcats only, man!"
• Secret ingredient to all good mystery cover copy — just add "... with DEATH!"

• I'm sorry, I started laughing at "accordion" and haven't stopped yet

~RP

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Paperback 291: The Maltese Falcon / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 268)

Paperback 291: Pocket Books 268 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Maltese Falcon
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Leo Manso / Stanley Meltzoff

Yours for: Hell no

The following is so self-evidently awesome that I refuse to sully it with my usual commentary:

Here's the original 1944 cover:



And now here's the cover of the DUST JACKET (you heard me) they issued several years later (this image went on to grace the cover of a later Permabooks edition)



Page 123:

"Morning, Sam. Set down and bite an egg." The hotel-detective stared at Spade's temple. "By God, somebody maced you plenty!"

~RP

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Paperback 242: Kid Galahad / Francis Wallace (Bantam 133)

Paperback 242: Bantam 133 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Kid Galahad
Author: Francis Wallace
Cover artist: Charles Andres

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Unlike most Good and Bad Angels, Kid Galahad's Good and Bad Angels chose to reside in his armpits, not on his shoulders.
• Love how heads are crammed into every crevice of the painting. My favorite is the sweaty, neck-wiping Tintin lookalike (under the Kid's right glove, which appears to have been fashioned from the remains of an old football).
• This Kid has apparently been waxed within an inch of his life. "Behold my glistening torso!"

Best things about this back cover:

• LOVE the numbers of the ref's count on the ropes. Dramatic.
• Check out how lame the cover of the Little, Brown edition was!
• Jeez, first line of copy makes this novel sound like a slasher film. Or a tale of surgery.

Page 123~

She looked at him coldly. "Don't flatter yourself. I don't care whether you burn or freeze."

~RP

Paperback 228: Crucible / Ben Ames Williams (Popular Library 113)

Paperback 228: Popular Library 113 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Crucible
Author: Ben Ames Williams
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Crucible," Or "The Andrews Sisters Go To Hell"
• Sadness! Fear! Uh ... Sultry Boredom!

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, text. And not even a break or indention to separate the paragraphs. So lazy.
• If those three on the cover are "Mary, Phil and Barbara" ... I might have to read this book. I need to know more about "Phil"
• I can only hope that Ben Ames Williams went on to write a novel called "Leave the Strange Woman to Heaven"

Page 123~

Q. You went into the office? A. I stood in the doorway and reached the switch.
Q. Did that light the hall? A. Yes, enough.
Q. Did you see anything? A. I saw a woman lying on the hall floor.
Q. And you did what? A. Turned on the hall light to look at her.

"If you love page after page of mundane interrogation transcripts, you will love ... Crucible! If you loved Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," on the other hand ... well, that's historically impossible. It won't be performed for the first time for another six years."

~RP

Paperback 45: Pocket Books 447

Paperback 45: Pocket Books 447 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Turnabout
Author: Thorne Smith
Cover artist: Uncredited (possibly Charles L. McCann)

Yours for: SOLD! (8/22/08)

Best things about this cover:

• I can't believe that in the 1940's you could get away with a front cover featuring a transvestite man in the bed of a transsexual Joan Crawford impersonator. Progressive.
• I hope (for his sake) that those are his knees that are tenting that bed sheet.
• Look at the bloody talons peeking out from the sleeve of Man-Joan's candy-cane pyjamas. Run away, transvestite man, run away!
• I believe that Charles L. McCann illustrated this cover. Why? Well, this "woman" has McCann's signature noseless-alien design. Remember this looker, from one of McCann's illustrations in Let's Make Mary?

Of course you do.

I love that the front cover gives you No explanation of what exactly is going on with Joan and her John - you have to flip the book over to find out; not that things get much clearer ...

Best things about this back cover:

• "Ribald" - 40's code for "sexed-up"
• "It seems..."
• "Mr. Ram..." - because Egyptian gods like European formality
• "Tim now occupied his wife's body..." [!?]
• "personally" [???]
• Last sentence makes No grammatical sense - I believe "become" should be "becomes"; I know that Pocket Books had decent editors, so this is just embarrassing
• "... the most hilarious novel in many a moonshine" [which copy writers were clearly drinking when they wrote this up]

Thorne Smith was a terrifically popular "humor" writer of the 40's and 50's. I own several of his paperbacks. One features a lady with preposterous boobs not unlike Mr. Crawford's here, and she is riding a sheep. I know, you can't wait, but you'll have to.

RP

Paperback 32: Dell 144

Paperback 32: Dell 144 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The White Brigand
Author: Edison Marshall
Cover artist: Uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• From the man who brought you "Great Smith" (seriously - same guy) comes ... "The White Brigand!"
• This book raises the question: What color are brigands normally?
• This novel appears to be set in China somewhere. I wonder how the natives will be depicted by Mr. Marshall. Hmm ... let's see. Just opened this book to a random page and the first word I saw was: "slant-eyed." Nice.
  
• You don't really see the word "Brigand" much these days. I always thought it meant someone who is lawless, violent, at least vaguely piratic - yes, a member of a band of thieves.
• The floating, glowing, jade pseudo-Buddha alien tiki is more than a little disturbing. First, he has jointless, perhaps even boneless limbs. Second, he has the world's shortest pigtails. That, or his head has both a positive and a negative terminal. Third, he appears to be made of plutonium. Fourth, his toothless grin will haunt my dreams tonight and possibly forever. I could go on.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is the first of many Dell "mapbacks" that we will see over the course of my paperback project. All early Dell paperbacks (or nearly all) featured a map on the back cover that depicted some scene in the book. This one is pretty crudely drawn, as mapbacks go, but it's still cool.
• Any book that features both a "reliquary" and a "chasm" can't be all bad, I say.
• Do we really need to be told that that is a "cliff?"

RP