Paperback 362: Bury Me Deep / Harold Q. Masur (Pocket Books 558)

Paperback 362: Pocket Books 558 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Bury Me Deep
Author: Harold Q. Masur
Cover artist: William Wirts

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• A quintessential keyhole cover (yes, it's a thing) — and an early one. Turns reader into an implied voyeur / peeping tom.
• 1948 (or thereabouts) seems to be a turning point in cover art — covers start to become more sensational, more sexual, more lurid ... If you click on "1947" or earlier in the tags for this site (sidebar), you'll see what I mean. Not sure why 1948 should be that year [the year of the first Kinsey Report!] ... but by the '50s, lurid and sensational will be the norm.
• I wish I could hear her undoubtedly learned disquisition on the merits of half-naked whisky-drinking.
• That underwear looks painted on, like she was drawn naked but then repurposed for this cover.
• Something about her face is off-kilter and strange, and her thumbless whisky-claw is mega-disturbing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Even the tagline is sensational. Sweet.
• "The lawyer in him" has the better cliché—hey, "inner man," who looks at a sexy woman in her underwear and thinks "gift horse!?"
• "Newest detective sensation," HA ha. How did that turn out, Scott Jordan?

Page 123~

Another shot exploded. I saw a spurt of flame from the muzzle spit luridly into the darkness beside a tree not fifty yards away. I arched my back, screamed like a frightened horse, threw out my arms and tumbled drunkenly to the ground.

Mmm, manly.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 360: The Big Bust / Ed Lacy (Pyramid X-2037)

Paperback 360: Pyramid X-2037 (PBO, 1969)

Title: The Big Bust
Author: Ed Lacy
Cover artist: F. Pfeifer

Yours for: SOLD! (10/8/10)


Best things about this cover:

• [Insert joke about connection between title and woman's rack here]
• For a woman who's tied up, gagged, and carrying a tiny drowning man in her stomach, she's awfully concerned about those guys behind her. Lady, you've got your own problems.
• I have reluctantly tagged this post with "Redhead" label, though honestly I don't know what you call that color.

Best things about this back cover:

• Geek observation #227: "Supercharged" is just "surcharged" with "P.E." inside it. . .
• So the woman is like good pancakes. Well, who wouldn't want to tail that?
• If the boardwalk is "bikini-filled," does that mean the ocean is filled with naked women (who, presumably, all left their bikinis on the boardwalk)? I hope so.
• One of these paragraphs should immediately be countered with "That's what she said!"

Page 123~

Walter awoke me at one-fifteen and watching for snakes, back of a crumpling wall, I changed into the woolen underwear and rubber suit, Rhoda's $60,000 bra doubling as a jock strap.

[Speechless]

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 359: The Drowner / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal k1302)

Paperback 359: Gold Medal k1302 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Drowner
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Lesson: brackish, green water—not for swimming.
• Fantastically creepy cover. That dude pulling her down must have one powerful set of lungs. or SCUBA equipment.
• Love the bubbles—nice touch to make sure they're coming from him (I assume it's a "him") as well as her. Also love the way the words cascade down the side of her struggling body. Accentuates the scary verticality of the whole cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• This I like less.
• Without the struggling lady to complement them, the vertically arranged words here just look stupid and purposeless.

Page 123~

If the fork hesitated on its way to the healthy mouth, it was a faltering so minor he was unable to detect it. But she looked considerably less friendly.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 357: Night Train / Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) (Lion Library LL40)

Paperback 357: Lion Library LL40 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1955)

Title: Night Train
Author: Kenneth Millar
Cover artist: Samson Pollen

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• I think there is a single scene in this book that is set in a jazz club. Why they have completely de-crime-fictionized this cover, I don't know ("A Bold Story of Fierce Desire"??), but I'm glad they did—the painting is fantastic: vibrant and chaotic. You rarely see a black woman in the position of sexy dame on these covers—very nice.
• I like the guy right behind her—the guy you are very likely to miss if you're sucked into either the playing/dancing or the steamy glance between Ms. Bar Lady and Mr. Ne'er-Do-Well. The guy behind her—he's the one I want to know. He's either tailing that guy, or he's just thinking "Really? That guy? She must be working some angle..."
• Love the guy in the foreground with the cigar! He is sooo happy to have that cigar!
• What is up with the letter spacing on the tagline? Letters get closer together as title moves left to right. It's like a 3rd grader wrote it by hand and ran out of room as she approached the right margin
  

Best things about this back cover:

• This is (pretty much) the cover of the original Lion edition of this book (which I own ... hey, wait, I've already blogged it—it's here! Check out the art parallels)
• Ross Macdonald was (understandably) saddled with the "Chandler/Hammett" mantle early on in his career, and despite a period of phenomenal fame (peaking around 1970), he just wasn't the artist either Hammett or Chandler was, and hasn't had their longevity. I know I am in the minority here, but I'm not a big Macdonald fan; I especially don't care for the Lew Archer stuff. Archer's just a smarmy, dull, self-righteous Marlowe. A Not-Marlowe. A Marl-faux. Sadly, he's also the model for virtually every P.I. that came after him.
• There is more than a "trace" of Freud in Macdonald's work; when reading Macdonald, I often feel like I'm reading a novel whose sole purpose is to illustrate some concept from Psychology 101. If I remember correctly, though, this pre-Lew Archer stuff is pretty tight and entertaining.

Page 123~

Mrs. Tessinger was extraordinarily vivacious. Her bosom seemed higher than ever, and her waist tighter.

That's a nice, lecherous eye the narrator has there.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 356: The Cask / Freeman Willis Crofts (Penguin 575)

Paperback 356: Penguin 575 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: The Cask
Author: Freeman Willis Crofts
Cover artist: Uncredited (jonas?)

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• It's a mystery. A mystery about ... a cask, I'm guessing. Hey, they can't all be Strip-Tease Girl.
• I like how there's a picture of a cask on the cover. In case I'd forgotten the title. I also like the wee mustachioed man.
• I do like the color scheme. And the soft tones and surreal shapes of the buildings and street.

Best things about this back cover:

• Freeman Willis [zzzzzzzzzz....]. This is *literally* more than you'd ever want to know about Freeman Willis Crofts.
  
• This is from when paperbacks were still trying to be highbrow and were taking themselves way too seriously. In just a few years things would get sexed up and pulped up and generally get interesting.

Page 123~

"It is with the utmost regret I have to tell you, M. Boirac, that your wife was undoubtedly murdered by strangulation. Further, you must know that she had been dead several days when that photograph was taken."

Wow. Blunt.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 346: Death Takes an Option / Neil MacNeil (pseud. of W.T. Ballard) (Gold Medal 807)

Paperback 346: Gold Medal 807 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Death Takes An Option
Author: Neil MacNeil (W.T. Ballard)
Cover artist: Uncredited (can't read that signature) [probably Gerry Powell]

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Ugh—somewhere in the 800s, perhaps a bit earlier, GM covers tend to get ugly as hell. There's this aesthetic that is all about sloppy. Everything looks sketched and half-finished and generally terrible. Also, the books seem flimsier overall, but that may be an unfounded impression. All I know is that lady's right thigh is a cartoonish "flesh" tone, esp. compared with the flesh on the rest of her body.
• What the hell is up with that guy? Is he a. rapping b. playing a zombie c. walking on a very narrow beam or d. about to put a quick end to a pig-catching contest?
• Title appears to be an allusion to 1934 Fredric March movie "Death Takes a Holiday."
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Only one thing: "Their descriptions."

Page 123~

She had red hair and good eyes and a beautiful figure. He wondered if the stories were true that some of these girls were dancers who, coming to Vegas with a company, found out that they could make three times as much juggling a tray as they could kicking their legs in one of the floor shows.

"What's your name, honey?"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 342: I Fear You Not / Ben Kerr (Popular Library 763)

Paperback 342: Popular Library 763 (PBO, 1956)

Title: I Fear You Not
Author: Ben Kerr (pseud. of William Ard)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not For Sale

Best things about this cover:

• "C'mon, this is prime lady flesh. At $4.95 / lb. ... you're not gonna get a better price than that!"
• "Take My Wife... seriously, take her, she's drivin' me and my pal Barney here nuts!"
• "Hi, Steve? I'm just calling you from my bubble bath to tell you that I fear you not, OK? OK, bye."
• *He Bought Cops The Way He Bought Women ... With A Nice Dinner And A Little Sweet Talk*
• "Down I Go," HA ha.
• The exclamation point motif (continued, in spades, on the back cover) is Exquisite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Poor Rita: "Ok, I've got on a sweater, parka, overcoat, headscarf ... so how 'bout now?" "Nope, sorry, you still look naked." "Damn it!" "Maybe tweed will work. Try tweed."
• Poor Paul: It's hard to come out to your mom, on the phone, in the '50s.
• Poor Gloria: She just looks really, really stupid.

Page 123~

He watched dispassionately as her shadowy figure gathered up clothes and put them on. It was a lithe young figure, a pleasure to watch in motion, but its bloom was aborning."

Easy on the thesaurus work there, Yeats. "Aborning?!" As in "Your writing is 'aborning' me to tears?"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 341: Crooked House / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 753)

Paperback 341: Pocket Books 753 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Crooked House
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Paul Kresse

Yours for: SOLD! (10/10/10)

Best things about this cover:

• Extreme Close-Up!
• The needle—beautifully rendered, with fantastic detail. Has an apparent weightiness and heft, a solidity, that makes it really stand out. The indentation of needle on skin is a wicked little touch. Nice.
• The talons—nothing accentuates a hypo cover like sexy/sinister blood red nails.
• I guess "Crooked House" is a more mass-market-friendly title than "Granddad's Heroin Addiction"

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, there's one "Who?" for each of the listed suspects, but somehow piling them up in a line there at the end diminishes their rhetorical effect / makes the imagined narrator sound like a psychotic owl.
• Someone named her child "Clemency?" "And this is my brother, Parole, and my sister, NoloContendere."
• Most enigmatic description I've seen in a while: "Death meant something special to weak-looking Laurence." With that kind of set-up, Laurence better be a carrion-devouring zombie or I'm going to be Very disappointed.

Page 123~

"My dear Sophia, do you really think an old gentleman of over eighty is the best judge of a child's welfare?"

Judging by the cover, grampa's got bigger problems than being 80.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 338: Dead Man's Tale / Ellery Queen [Stephen Marlowe] (Pocket Books 6117)

Paperback 337: Pocket Books 6117 (PBO 1961)

Title: Dead Man's Tale
Author: Ellery Queen (ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "He ... he was out picking tulips and his sabots slipped and he hit her head on a windmill blade, which caused him to choke on some edam. I do not know how we ended up underwater. Dike broke, I suppose."
• This title is superlame.
• Never would have known this was ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe if I hadn't gotten on Abe Books to check prices. There's a signed copy available there in which Marlowe writes "Just this once..."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Hacha" sounds like some kind of drink you'd order at a hipster café in Brooklyn.
• This plot sounds interesting. I really want to know what they're going to tell Hacha once they find him. It better have something to do with a dead man, or a windmill. Otherwise, total ripoff.

Page 123~

Then they heard Lou Goody tramping up the hill.

And I thought "Barney Street" was a good name.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 328: Nightmare / William Irish (Readers-Choice Library No. 12)

Paperback 328: Readers-Choice Library No. 12 (1st thus, 1950)

Title: Nightmare
Author: William Irish
Cover artist: Wayne Blickenstaff

Yours for: $35


Best things about this cover:

• It's effectively creepy, combining puke colors and swirly, dizzying effects with a Joker-faced floating lady-head, a blot-like specter, and some dude re-enacting the dance from the "Thriller" video in a fun house hall of mirrors.
• William Irish = Cornell Woolrich = kind of a big deal. This book has some mild smashing at the lower spine, and someone's had at those pupils with a pencil, but it's square and solid and pretty rare (see range of prices here).
• Readers-Choice Library is an uncommon imprint. You may remember their work from this fabulous, pot-smoke-smothered cover a while back.

Best things about this back cover:

• "I said TOWARD HIM!"
• The writing here is not good.
• "Here, take this ... sharp-pointed bore!" (!?)
• "His victim's button...?" I really don't understand the premise of this write-up.

Page 123~

"Tom, what's wrong?" she said anxiously. "You look all white and disturbed! You haven't—you haven't lost your position, have you?" She caught him by the sleeve and stared up into his face.

She added, "Because I will fuckin' cut you, Tom. You hear me?"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 327: The Case of the Constant Suicides / John Dickson Carr (Dell 91)

Paperback 327: Dell 91 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: The Case of the Constant Suicides
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Gerald Gregg does great borderline-abstract covers. Bold shapes and colors. Simple, but I like it a lot.
• That is some thick, thick, possibly polyethylene blood.
• I'm trying to imagine what "constant suicides" could possibly mean. Are they literally occurring non-stop, around the clock? That's rough.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• I want to live in Angus Campbell's room.
• The only castle in all of Scotland made entirely of red Legos.
• I'm not buying "Courtyard." Looks more like "Sheep Pen."

Page 123~

"No, my boy. The real meat of the thing is here." Dr. Fell made the pages riffle like a pack of cards. "In the body of the diary. In the account of this activities for the past year."

He frowned at the book and slipped it into his pocket. His expression of gargantuan distress had grown along with his fever of certainty.

"Hang it all!" he said, and smote his hand on his knee. "The thing is inescapable! Elspat steals the diary. She reads it. Being no fool, she guesses—"

"Smote!" I didn't know anyone but God ever did that. Cool.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 326: Terror in the Sun / Richard Glendinning (Gold Medal 237)

Paperback 326: Gold Medal 237 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Terror in the Sun
Author: Richard Glendinning
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Sexy swamp ninja.
• It's a weird cover—eerily still. Not tarted up. Not violent. Works by suggesting the threat of approaching menace. I admire her locks and curves, but the focal point of this painting is clearly her eyes. The sideways/backwards glance. Like someone's following her. Cool.
• Realistically, she's about three seconds from being blindsided and devoured by a crocodile.

Best things about this back cover:

• Leaving aside the nonsensical quality of the simile (original sin just *is*—it doesn't "sweep"), I love that first sentence. And the second. And the last.
• Having read this back cover, I know almost nothing about this novel, but this kind of skeletal, sparse, overdramatic cover copy is far more likely to hook me than a clear or thorough description of the plot might. I don't wanna know what happens. I wanna know what it's gonna *feel* like to read this thing.

Page 123~

"Oh, I'm tough enough, Johnny boy. I have to be hard because I want things the soft can't have. I know the way I've got to go to get them, and I won't mind squaring a few accounts along the way."

Wow. That is pure hard-boiled poetry. Quintessential tough dame talk. I think I love you, Swamp Girl.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 324: Keep Cool, Mr. Jones / Timothy Fuller (Dell 594)

Paperback 324: Dell 594 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Keep Cool, Mr. Jones
Author: Timothy Fuller
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• If the ridiculously low-cut blouse didn't get you looking at her boobs, the gun is there to point you in the right direction.
• "Get me a brisket, Mr. Jones."
• "What? We like to be surrounded by cold slabs of meat when we do it. Don't judge us."
• She has an interesting variation on Fear Hand™—like she's timidly waving at the gun-wielder ("uh ... hi honey") or about to sling her web à la Spidey.
• Jupiter Jones ... and ... January Jones ... in ... 'We Meat Again'!

Best things about this back cover:

• "For design inspiration, we're going to give you a hard-boiled egg and two dominoes."
• You'd expect the final tagline to be some kind of outrageous pun or exciting teaser, not a *literal description of what you can see on the cover.*

Page 123~

Bateman put a telephone on the bar. When Jupiter walked up to it Joe nodded quickly at Maney and whispered, "Drunk and ugly. Watch it." And then, normally, "All the comforts of home."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 321: Wicked Women / ed. Lee Wright (Pocket 1263)

Paperback 321: Pocket 1263 (PBO, 1960)

Title: A Butcher's Dozen of Wicked Women
Editor: Lee Wright
Cover artist: Morgan Kane

Yours for: SOLD!


Best things about this cover:

• If they'd just get rid of the text and let me see what she's looking at, this cover would be perfect.
• Great Girl Art, Girl With Gun, Gams Galore, all overlooking a cityscape. I live for covers like this. Subtle, sexy, delicious. Her arm position, her hip cock ... perfect. If I woke up in a hotel room and *this* is what I saw when I looked over at the balcony, I could die a happy man.
• Problem: the painting gives off an urban, hard-boiled vibe. Those authors ... do not. I mean, they're fine, if you like more traditional mysteries, but the ones I recognize are somewhat cozier than authors I tend to read. There *is* a Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald) story inside. Not sure why he's not on the cover, as he is pretty well established at the time of this book's release.

Best things about this back cover:

• Cool '60s design — vaguely rectangular swatches of different bright colors arranged in asymmetrical relationship to one another — continued from front cover.
• I'm torn between the practical Lucy and the vengeful Daihili.

Page 123~

from "Suspicion," by Dorothy L. Sayers

He sipped it thoughtfully, standing by the kitchen stove. After the first sip, he put the cup down. Was it his fancy, or was there something queer about the taste? He sipped it again, rolling it upon his tongue. It seemed to him to have a faint tang, metallic and unpleasant. In a sudden dread he ran out to the scullery and spat the mouthful into the sink.

I read one novel by Sayers and the mystery (or rather, its solution) was So preposterous that I never read another. I will say, however, that the woman knows her way around a sentence. She translated Dante, after all.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 319: Seven Days Before Dying / Helen Nielsen (Dell 971)

Paperback 319: Dell 971 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Seven Days Before Dying
Author: Helen Nielsen
Cover artist: R. Del Rossi

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The amazing detail on the shoes and socks. I would have thought this one of the more boring crime fiction covers, but I looked at the shoes and socks for a while and they're lovingly rendered, and kind of mesmerizing.
• That lady is either chasing a very clumsy thief or drunkenly stumbling through a public park, chucking her jewelry at schoolchildren for amusement.

Best things about this back cover:

• There's some blue splatters on it ... for some reason.
• You know a novel means business when it breaks out the Courier font.

Page 123~

Stu leaned forward and extended his right hand in a greeting that was never acknowledged, whereupon the blonde toppled forward into her drink again. By this time, she was beyond caring anyway, so Stu let her stay there.

Did I mention that Helen Nielsen's a pretty good writer. 'Cause she is.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 316: The Man Who Disappeared / Edgar Bohle (Dell 1013)

Paperback 316: Dell 1013 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Man Who Disappeared
Author: Edgar Bohle
Cover artist: Bill Rose

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Did someone throw a bocce ball through her window, 'cause I'm not buying that as a bullet hole. It's massive.
• Not thrilled with how they've cropped her. What the hell is she doing? Dancing? Hanging laundry? How am I supposed to feel the, you know, suspense, when she looks like she's putting away groceries?
• The Man Who Alternated Font Color

Best things about this back cover:

• This better end with Dick and Steve getting married.
• I'm pretty sure the guy in the silhouette just snapped his left ankle. It hurts even to look at it.

Page 123~

"Miss Halsey and I are going out to get her gas tank filled," Rupple said to him.

Nice euphemism from the improbably named "Rupple!"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 307: Payment Deferred / C.S. Forester (Bantam 816)

Paperback 307: Bantam 816 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Payment Deferred
Author: C.S. Forester
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The hot new sequel to "Interest Accrued," from the publishers who brought you "Expenses Deducted"
• "They're after me, Gladys! I know they are. You defer *one* payment and they sic the dogs on you. That's why I've put my throne by the window, so I can keep my eye ... hey! What's that? Is someone going through our trash? Oh. No, just a raccoon. Here, get me some more Red Bull, would ya? Gotta stay alert ..."
• I love her face — happy, like she's imagining what she'll do with his money when he's inevitably bumped off.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... will keep you chained to your chair..." — That's pretty vivid. "This book will perform such degrading acts of bondage upon you that you'll be forced to acknowledge its awesomeness."
• Hey, looks like the original hardcover features a guy looking out a window, too. I'll take the cover with the sexily murderous strawberry blonde any day of the week.

Page 123~

For once he was neither the hotel prisoner nor yet was he at home with his father. It was the transition stage. He spent his time deliciously, luxuriously.

Ah, the transition stage from hotel prisoner to home with father. Such a heady time in a young man's life.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 305: Air Bridge / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1125)

Paperback 305: Bantam 1125 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Air Bridge
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Looks like the final frame in a Douglas Sirk melodrama. "We'll follow that Air Bridge, darling ... follow it ... to Freedom!" [cue music ... and cue credits]
• That is a *lot* of coat he's wearing. Note that it's enveloping not just him, but the adoring, beret-wearing lady he's got his arm around as well — the one who looks like she's thinking: "Forget the airplanes for one second and kiss me, you gorgeous slab of a man!"
• Check out Heckle and Jeckle conspiring in the shadowy background. "To be continued ... ?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Why does all the danger in paperback cover copy descriptions come in "web" form?
• SAETON? ELSE!?!? What, are you using a Ouija Board to name your characters?
• "DIANA, who wanted Saeton with the hard passion of a man..." Hot girl-on- ... whatever SAETON is ... action!

Page 123~

His voice had risen and there was a wild look in his eyes. "Forget about yourself. Forget about me. Won't you do this for your country?"
"No," I said.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]