57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 56

Actually, I have no idea what the last two books are from the Book Sale. They appear to have sort of blended in with the rest of the collection. So the last two books will just be ones I can't place, not yet officially in The Collection — stuff that *could* have come from the Book Sale. Enjoy.

Title: Some Slips Don't Show (Pocket Books 6095, 1st ptg, 1961)
Author: A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $8

• Expression on that guy's face is Nightmarish. That chair, however, is pure '60s gold, as is the Jackie-O style of Miss Primping there. I love the mysterious inscription over Dean Martin's ugly cousin's head: "Amy." It's as if he's thinking, "Amy, I'm sorry I barfed on your other dress."
  
• I believe this painting represents the seated drunk green guy's perspective. He's so sloshed that the objects of his ogling have huge, sickly, sweeping motion lines. Throwing back her hair creates a Pollockesque swoosh. Kind of looks like the number "9."
• On second, or third, glance, I believe that that is not a chair he's sitting in, but a hovercraft. He's reminding more and more of that Martian from the "Flintstones" every time I look at him.

• Seriously? You decide to reprise an image from the front cover and you choose *him*!? "Hey, [hic!], look at me! I'm flying through your doorways! Lady!"
• I'm not sure I get the joke? Is she naked under clothes? Is her slip really showing? Is there a pun on "slip," so that I'm supposed to understand that she's made an error of some sort. Is "slip" some horrible anatomical code word? Only the racially ambiguous drunk alien knows.

Page 123~

"And furthermore," I told her, "don't hand me that line about what I owe you. I don't owe you a damned thing!"

He's short, but Donald Lam can talk down to the ladies like nobody's business (I actually really like the Cool + Lam books by "Fair")

~RP

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Paperback 293: Give 'Em the Ax / A. A. Fair (Dell 389)

Paperback 293: Dell 389 (1st ptg, ca. 1952)

Title: Give 'Em the Ax
Author: A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $22

Just received this book in the mail as a gift from a generous reader, C. Cope of Weatherford, TX. I already own it, but am psyched because now I have a copy to read. I'll get right on it, right after I finish rereading "The Long Goodbye" for the umpteenth time (teaching it this week). The copy offered here is from my original collection.


Best things about this cover:

• Gams. Heels, hosiery seams ... the works.
• World's shallowest bathtub.
• Where is the ax that she gave him? I wish I could see it.
• What kind of skirt is that? Looks like a pelt of some kind.
• They killed Big Bird to make that bath mat.
• I love the horrid realism of that guy's face folds.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback! Always awesome.
• When I open a gin joint, it will be called "Rimley's Rendezvous." Actually, scratch that. Too many syllables, a little too French. Still, it's colorful.
  
• This is like some architect's sketch pad — an architect preparing to enter a "Best Rectangular Shape-Drawing" contest.
• Love love love the bungalow-style old skool motel. Motels are the bestest of all crime novel settings.

Page 123~

Bertha's jaw was pressed forward like the prow of a battleship. "What's your proposition?" she said ominously.

If you've ever read a Lam & Cool mystery, then you know Bertha Cool is not to be @#$#ed with. She's ... imposing. 165 lbs and "hard as barbed wire." I really like Gardner's Lam/Cool stuff. Perry Mason, not so much, though, to be fair, I haven't read a Mason novel in a long, long time. Maybe it would hold my interest better now.

~RP