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

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Paperback 350: Strumpets' Jungle / Sloane Britain & Any Man's Plaything / Rubel (Dollar Double 951)

Paperback 350: Dollar Double 951 (1st ptg / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Strumpets' Jungle // Any Man's Plaything
Authors: Sloane Britain // Rubel (HA ha, one name, like Collette, or Ludacris)
Cover artists: Robert Bonfils // Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $40


Best things about the "Strumpets' Jungle" cover:

• One of the craziest covers I own. First of all, full frontal female nudity? They cover the nipples with a narrow tree branch, but leave the crotch wide open!? Is the dark patch hair? Or does she shave and that's just a shadow? These tree lesbians are wild!
  
• Second, tree lesbians?
• I find this cover incredibly creepy, as it reminds me of nothing so much as the crucifixion. There's Jesus lesbian, and then Thief #1 lesbian over there, and then ... I guess the Thief #2 lesbian is off-screen. Really horrifying. Or else they are being eaten by tree creatures (Ents?) who really love voluptuous lesbians. Or else this is some sylvan lesbian sex rite that my lesbian friends have somehow never told me about.
• I'm no ecosystem expert, but that doesn't look like a "jungle."
• And in case you didn't know, "3rd Sex" = homosex...ual

Best things about the "Any Man's Plaything" cover:

• She is antithesis of women on the other cover, as she is wearing panties *and* concealing her pubic region with her hands.
• There's nothing very "shocking" looking about this cover. Pretty girl in her underwear, not letting you peek at her crotch. Only the shoes suggest she has anything on her mind besides shutting the door on you and getting some rest. All I know about her is that she has very good balance.

Page 123 of "Strumpets' Jungle"~

"Paula, I don't understand. What were they ...?"
"Never mind that for now," I said. "We've got to get to our classrooms."

~RP

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Paperback 295: The Three Coffins / John Dickson Carr (Popular Library 174)

Paperback 295: Popular Library 174 (1st ptg, 1949)
Title: The Three Coffins
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Rudolph Belarski

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "Lady in Peril" week continues with another Lady in Peril — and another Rudolph Belarski cover with serious hand action! Can't decide which hand is better, the blood-soaked one or the ... what the hell is that other hand doing? Signing? Is it clutching something? If she were that horrified, would she really have gotten down on her knees and plunged her hand into the red stuff oozing from under the door? I doubt it.
• This makes me not want to see "Behind the Green Door"
• What is with the NYT syntax? Subject at the end ... no verb ...
• CARR is a common crossword answer. If you solve crosswords, it is good to know who created Dr. Gideon Fell.
• Belarski clearly prefers distressed women in solid, bold colors, and with ultra-expressive, super-plastic hands.

Best things about this back cover:

• More text-only dreck.
• Oooh, a locked room mystery. That should be zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
• This back cover sounds like a "Twilight Zone" plot ad-libbed by someone very drunk or very high. (Happy 50th birthday to "The Twilight Zone," by the way — I live in Rod Serling's home town, so there are "Twilight Zone" city buses driving around town and everything)

Page 123~

"Well, sir, there's blood, for one thing," replied Somers. "And also a very queer sort of rope ..."

~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

Paperback 292: The Four False Weapons / John Dickson Carr (Popular Library 282)

Paperback 292: Popular Library 282 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: The Four False Weapons
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Uncredited (Bergey? Belarski?)

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Another deservedly famous cover. Vivid, sensational, boobtastic.
• If it weren't for the evident violence that has been committed here, I would say her posture suggests an accompanying statement of "Go ahead, take them! Take my breasts! They are all yours, cheri!"
• The tendons on the back of his left hand are doing something awfully scary.
• I love the word "wanton" as a noun.

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, OK, I get it, she was a whore, a strumpet, an easy lay, etc. No need to belabor the obvious. Give the poor dead girl a break.
• Look, Sherloque, *I* could have told you that if you find four different weapons near a body, *at least* three of them are "false."
• The last line here takes the story from contrived to ridiculous.

Page 123~

Mrs. Toller had now an air of complete boredom. You would not have thought the broad-nostrilled nose could have gone so high without absurdity, yet there it was ...

Her high bored nose now provided shelter to several small animals and a family of Hobbits. And yet still, no absurdity. Astonishing.

~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 265: Look Behind You Lady / A.S. Fleischman (Gold Medal 223)

Paperback 265: Gold Medal 223 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Look Behind You Lady
Author: A.S. Fleischman
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• All I can say is: there'd better be a comma underneath her head.
• "For the last time, fella, I'm not 'lost.' I work in this here Mexican restaurant and I'm just takin' a smoke break. And I already looked behind me, and there was nothin' but a newspaper vending machine. Now beat it!"
• Strangely the rainy street tableau in the background is far more interesting / beautiful to me than the Lady in the foreground.

Best things about this back cover:

• Damn, no comma.
• I am currently waiting for the perfect opportunity to use the line: "I'm probably signing my death warrant, baby, but I'm going to listen to you."
• Oh, SHANGHAI FLAME, you don't say ... is that ... something?

Page 123~

"I was licked in Macao."

Well, we've all been there.

~RP

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Paperback 263: A Key to the Suite / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal s1198)

Paperback 263: Gold Medal s1198 (PBO, 1962)

Title: A Key to the Suite
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $24


Best things about this cover:

• File under "novelty cover." One of the most stylistically unusual covers I own.
• It's a meta-cover. A cover about covers. It's explaining the conventions of paperback covers to you. Instead of author / title / blurb, you get three very polite complete sentences. And a lot of loopy orange carpet. And a single shoe.
• Love how even the Gold Medal insignia is brought into odd color and design schema. Also, the font on the author and title is awesome-o.

Best things about this back cover:

• I guess I kind of like the all-caps typewriter font. And the way the back cover mimics an interoffice memo. That first paragraph is pretty gripping, too, as back cover copy goes. Granted, with the back covers we've seen so far, the competition isn't exactly tough.

Page 123~

He knew he was still a little bit drunk, but not very much, because the prolonged strenuous taking of the woman had boiled it out of his blood.

Many people love MacDonald's writing. That leads me to believe that sentences like this one are the exception in his writing, not the rule. "The prolonged strenuous taking of the woman?" Sound like something out of "The 19th-century Gentleman's Guide to Hunting and Calisthenics."

~RP

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Paperback 262: Too Hot to Hold / Day Keene (Gold Medal 931)

Paperback 262: Gold Medal 931 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Too Hot to Hold
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited, tho' there's something very McGinnisesque about that woman

Yours for: SOLD (7/23/09)


Best things about this cover:

• I Love This Cover. It's unusual and enigmatic and just oozes sophistication and coolness and mystery. I *want to know* what she is doing, where she is going, who's in the cab with her, all of it.
• Great Girl Art that isn't hyper-sexed. Great gams, great gloves, and Great Hair.
• "Death" is kind of anticlimactic after "torture." Not really shocking. Kind of the next logical step. Now "... leading men to soup ... and death!" That would be shocking.
• Sadly, this title has put the theme to Ghostbusters II in my head: "Too hot to handle / Too cold to hold / They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control!" — Oh, Bobby Brown, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Best things about this back cover:

• If you like green/brown, or off-center typography, this is the cover for you.

Page 123~

Linda Lou stopped pretending and ran her hands over her flat body. She could be carrying the first of them now. The thought made her blush. After the way she'd acted, if it was possible for a woman to conceive more than once in a night, she probably had a whole family inside her.

You'll be relieved (maybe) to know that this passage is not directly related to the scene of abuse and torture (possible rape?) on the book's back cover. Still, though ... I'm kind of creeped out. "A whole family?" OB/Gyn: "Hey, there's a mom and dad, three kids and a dog in here. How'd that happen?"

~RP

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Paperback 260: Stairway to Death / Bruno Fischer (Pyramid 29)

Paperback 260: Pyramid 29 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Stairway to Death
Author: Bruno Fischer
Cover artist: I have it labeled "Meyer" but name visible in very lower left corner is "Frederick"...

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Death has some fierce fucking heels. But also some pretty lifeless-looking legs. Coupla upside-down bowling pins with seams drawn on. I've seen sexier gams in the window of Ralphie's house in "A Christmas Story"
• Well if you build stairs like that, with a vertiginous drop and stairs nowhere close to perpendicular to the wall, then yes, someone's inevitably going to die.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book is like an ex-fighter who had a long, brutal career, won more than he lost, and somehow managed to survive with this brains intact. It's got a lot of wear — stains and scratches and what not — but it's absolutely tight and solid and readable. More "broken in" than "busted." I would not get into the ring with this book. To say that it has "character" or "personality" is a polite way of saying it could still kick your ass, sonny.
• It's interesting to me how much Fischer is being pushed here as a recognizable name. I didn't know he ever achieved real name recognition (except among later fans and collectors of hard-boiled lit).
• Why are the quotes on these books such suckfests most of the time? "Plenty of Mystery"? It's a fucking mystery, NYT? What did you expect, a History of Prussia?

Page 123~

There was a tense silence. Oscar drank down the applejack.

~RP

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Paperback 246: The Disenchanted / Budd Schulberg (Bantam A1051)

Paperback 246: Bantam A1051 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Disenchanted
Author: Budd Schulberg
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Her pose! One shoe! Awesome. I think I love her.
  
• Book should be called "The Dissolute," or "Yeah, I'm Drunk, Whaddya Gonna Do About It, Ya Impotent Bastard? Get Me Another Martini"
• Harry Schaare Loves his Floating Heads — we'll see more in the future.
• Love the little maniacal dancing / jazz club scene in the background
• The novel may be set in the 20s, but these people are not believably from the 20s. Except for emaciated Clark Gable in a tux back there, hitting on the girl who's reclining on the hair of Floating Head. He's 20s all the way.
• "What Makes Sammy Run" is a classic Hollywood novel. Fantastic.

Best things about this back cover:

• LOVE the guy admiring the rack of his drunken lady friend, up-close! "Yes. These will do nicely."
• Toga party or religious visitation? "This angel came into my candle-lit room last night ... man, she was hot."
• I love Michener's precision — like he remembers exactly where he was, three years ago, when he read a novel better than this one.

Page 123~

When he finds out the commercial tie-up he feels like a jerk for having fallen for her. Then, in the finals of the ski-jump, he's injured.

~RP

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Paperback 241: Mother, Daughter and Lover / G.G. Fickling (Softcover Library B1069S)

Paperback 241: Softcover Library B1069S (2nd ptg?, 1967ish)

Title: Mother, Daughter and Lover
Author: G. G. Fickling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Does my bra strap smell weird to you?"
• "The Intimate Confessions of a Beach Boy" — Brian Wilson at his nadir ... or apex, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
• We've seen Fickling's work before — they (yes, they) wrote the Honey West novels. I like that their name is a mash-up of "fickle" and "fucking" ... and "finger-licking," sort of.
• I like the idea that there is a ranking system for the relative explosiveness of Sex Triangles.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Well preserved?!?!" HA ha. Like a mummy.
• "Her eyes ... stopped at my wet trunks and narrowed." That's pretty good, as sex fiction cover copy goes. "Youthful, upthrust flesh," less so.

Page 123~

Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pane of glass.

It's bad enough that you have to use the painful adverb "shatteringly" — do we really need the simile? Glass is the First thing evoked by "shattering." I mean, what else is the shattering supposed to signal? "Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pot pie."

~RP

P.S. I was thrilled recently to hear that my blog had inspired one of my readers to start her own vintage pb collection. Check out one of her initial purchases here. It's ... jaw-dropping.

Paperback 216: The April Robin Murders / Craig Rice and Ed McBain (Dell D306)

Paperback 216: Dell D306 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The April Robin Murders
Author: Craig Rice and Ed McBain
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Signature super-hot McGinnis woman ... until you get up to the head. Then it's The Joker's mom. Holy moly.
• I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that McGinnis draws the best asses, anywhere, ever. His women tend to be a little gaunt and a little dead-eyed for me, in general, but from waist to knees I have zero complaints.
• Oddly comical cover for McGinnis, perhaps because the book is a kind of dark comedy. Love the Spy vs. Spy wavy dagger in the dead guy's hand. Also, love his hand. Awesome agony hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think you mean "A Front," but OK.
• I want you to write a story for me that begins "So Bingo and Handsome..." I would read that story.
• Why are those phrases hyphenated in the second paragraph. So Wrong. So Wrong. Trying to see humor ... failing ...
• I would wear a t-shirt that read simply "What You Need In Hollywood Is "Front"" - enigmatic!
• Um, I just noticed that she has pompons on her ankles for some reason. What the hell is that all about? Or is she being attacked by Evil Tribbles?

Page 123~

There were a great many things to say, Bingo reflected, and none of them really seemed to fit the occasion. He stood by the doorway, deciding between "How did you get in?" "What are you doing here?" and "Who are you?"

~RP

Paperback 204: The Girl Who Had to Die + The Blank Wall / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace G-512)

Paperback 204: Ace G-512 (1st ptg / 1st ptg)

Title: The Girl Who Had to Die / The Blank Wall
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• There was this floating head that liked to eat sailboats, which made the tall, dark, mysterious man on the beach very sad. The end.
• What is it with the rainy day covers on all these Holding novels? Dreary and decidedly unhot. More skin, please.
• Actually, on third or fourth look, the streaks look less like rain than like the trim on some elaborate fur hat. Or a really, really bad haircut.

Best things about this other cover:

• This is one of my favorite pieces of crime fiction ever written. Ever. Seriously, it's that good. And unusual. Super suspenseful, with really complex and interesting characters. Women that aren't just femmes fatales. Just great. Provides a fascinating glimpse into domestic life during WWII (i.e. while the husband is away at war). Wish it would stay in @#$@ing print!
• More lazy art. Etch-a-sketch posing as op-art. And I think the guy from the other cover just walked through the book and ended up here. That lady is not a very good hider.

Page 123~ (from The Blank Wall)

"Here's something you might be glad of," he said, and held out three little capsules, bright yellow.

~RP

Paperback 186: Danger Is My Line / Stephen Marlowe (Gold Medal 947)

Paperback 186: Gold Medal 947 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Danger Is My Line
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Cover artist: Uncredited (looks like Barye Phillips a little)

Yours for: SOLD! (Jan. 11, 2009)


Best things about this cover:

• "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just..."

1. "tying my ... pump"
2. "doing some very advanced step aerobics"
3. "trying to figure out the most auspicious way to present my magnificent rear end to the world"

• Chester Drum looks like he's prepping to give someone a very unpleasant exam
• "Danger Is My Line" is a beyond-lame title - along with the author's last name (Marlowe), it furthers the impression that the book will be a horrid rip-off of Chandler (who wrote "Trouble Is My Business")

Best things about this back cover:

• So Chester Drum is ... a lamb. Either that, or one of Mary's lambs wants to screw her.

Page 123~

Maybe he got the belly from drinking too much beer or maybe he got it from eating criminals alive - but the overall impression he gave, penguin-body, rimless hexagonal glasses, merry twinkling eyes, was about as deadly as a house-cat's. Still, I told myself, these things are relative - house-cats are pretty deadly: to rats.

"Deep Thoughts," by Chester Drum

~RP

Paperback 144: The Girl from Las Vegas (J.M. Flynn) / To Have and to Kill (Robert Martin) (Ace Double F-111)

Paperback 144: Ace Double F-111 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Girl from Las Vegas / To Have and To Kill
Author: J.M. Flynn / Robert Martin
Cover artist: uncredited / uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Q: What's the one thing that could upstage a half-naked, armed redhead reclining on your hotel room bed?
• A: Those pants

• This cover makes me feel funny ... I like that she's, uh, packing heat, but does she have to hold it like that. It's making me worried/confused. I think she's ordering me to kneel, but ... I'm scared to ask why.
  

• It's like Ann-Margaret killed "I Dream of Jeannie," stole her hair, and then ran off to Las Vegas to, I don't know ... let's say, join Clown College.

Best things about this cover:

• "Aaargh, Krull angry. Who paint words on Krull's back? Krull make someone pay for cleaning bill..."
• "Abridged" - HA ha. "Long story short, he married her, killed her, and then carried her half-shod corpse over the threshold. Cue the music, fade to black, roll credits."
• I should be keeping track of all the low-rent outfits that provide blurbs for my books. The Charleston News & Courier!? When did anyone ever take reading advice from South Carolina? (No offense, guys ... Go Gamecocks!)

Page 123~

He had shaved and changed into a light blue short-sleeved shirt and gray cord slacks. His attire surprised me a little, perhaps because I had subconsciously expected him to wear a dark mourning suit and somber tie. He still looked tired; eyes sunken, dark half moons beneath them. I leaned back in the chair and said, "Hi."

-from To Have and To Kill

~RP

Paperback 138: One-Way Ticket / Bert and Dolores Hitchens (Perma Books M-3100)

Paperback 138: Perma Book M-3100 (1st ptg, 1957)
Title: One-Way Ticket
Author: Bert and Dolores Hitchens
Cover artist: James Meese



Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• "Railroad detective" - my favorite kind!
• The swirling green vortex of nausea and despair
• The distractingly child-like drawing of the upper half of a candle
• Cool stenciled font on the title
• That furniture - the proportions seem off and there are legs that appear to come from / go to nowhere, but in general, it's cool; spare, stark, mid-century modern in the very best way
• If only she hadn't cut her hair by herself in the dark with a bread knife, she would easily be one of the hottest women in my collection - understated yet stunning black dress (that's a dress, right, not a negligee?), fierce black slip-ons, and a perversely casual way with money. What's not to love?
  

Best things about this back cover:

• I love when back covers function like movie teasers: " ... MURDER! Featuring ... Boots! David Bryant! Some other B movie character actors whose names you don't know. And starring Jerry Mathers, as The Beav"
• Which of these names doesn't belong? A: "David Bryant" - what a dud. That last name really ruins the whole vibe of the back cover. Everyone else gets one colorful name, and he gets the full name of some guy from middle management.
• Wait, Rock dies? Uh, SPOILER ALERT!
• This all makes sense except for Boots. I mean, I could write the plot of this book, but I would have no idea what to do with Boots. David Bryant already has two women. Is Boots a cat?

Page 123~

This was a joke on Boots by Boots. They were all expected to enjoy it. They chuckled in chorus and Vic felt a fool.

I'm guessing it was a familiar feeling.

~RP

Paperback 109: A Hard Day's Knight / Ted Mark (Lancer 73-508)

Paperback 109: Lancer 73-508 (PBO, 1966)

Title: A Hard Day's Knight (The New Man from O.R.G.Y. #9)
Author: Ted Mark
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Hey Ladies, he's Back! See Steve Victor wipe nervous (but manly) sweat from his neck in "A Hard Day's Knight" - get it? 'Cause he's kinda like a "knight" (if you take a lot of drugs and then squint real hard) ... and then maybe if we make people think of the Beatles he will seem more attractive.
• Nothing turns me on like a housecoat, granny panties, and molded plastic hair of an indeterminate dirt color.
• Not sure what he's planning to do with that gun, but the placement makes me nervous.
• #9 ... is my favorite number. For real.

Best things about this back cover:

• Space Race!
• You had me at "wife-swapping"
• Why will I still be asking "Who is Ted Mark?" even after I've "read his books?"
• "Hip readers are asking 'Who is Ted Mark?" - the rest of us are asking the more pertinent question: "WHY is Ted Mark?"

Page 123~

[brace yourself - last time I quoted from a Ted Mark book, there was "edible root" involved]

Page 123 just doesn't cut it, so here's Page 108:

Her young breasts pointed up at me like two scarlet-beaked doves eager to be fed. Leonard was fumbling at her hips with the buttons of her shorts. His jeans were already down around his ankles. His adolescent lust was a murderous spear catching the moonlight. I revised my opinion as to his lack of maturity. Intellectually I might have been right, but physically he was a grown man-and-a-half.

Oh ... my. "Murderous spear." Still, it's better than "edible root."

~RP

Paperback 106: A Dangerous Woman / James T. Farrell (Panther 954)

Paperback 106: Panther 954 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: A Dangerous Woman
Author: James T. Farrell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (6/2/08)


Best things about this cover:

• This is more like a woman auditioning for a paperback cover than an actual cover painting. "You want me to [not] wear what?"
• "... her obsession for men became a desire to repel them" - Mission Accomplished.
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five bangles on her right wrist. Yes, that's a record for a paperback cover. Congratulations, boring, overly-clothed lady. You can collect your $10 Target gift certificate on your way out the door. Buh-bye.
• "Dangerous" extends directly out from her crotch. Nice.

Best things about this back cover:

• This blurb writer is from the "Adverb adjective, adverb adjective, adverb adjective, and adverb adverb adjective..." school of blurb writing.
• Why don't writers cover "the human scene" any more?
• That Panther is far too sedate to be a good logo. It should really be killing something, or at least roaring.

Page 123~

I never knew what anarchism was except that I'm against it and it's radical, but I never knew what an anarchist was. Now I know. An anarchist is a Frenchman driving an automobile in gay Paree.

~RP

Paperback 90: The Hot Diary (Howard J. Olmsted) / Ring Around a Rogue (J. M. Flynn) (Ace Double D-459)

Paperback 90: Ace Double D-459 (PBO 1960 / PBO 1960)

Title: The Hot Diary / Ring Around a Rogue
Author: Howard J. Olmsted / J.M. Flynn
Cover artist: uncredited / uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (early May 2008)


Best things about this cover:

• Don't make Robert Stack angry. You wouldn't like Robert Stack when he's angry
• This cover is great - quintessential hard-boiled with a mod style (again, love pink in my hard-boiled covers). They are both dressed impeccably. Her dress is fierce (love the black accents, especially the band and bow toward the hemline), and he carries off a trench-coat way better than most dopey goons.
• Does this count as "bondage?" I'm counting it. I imagine that her hands are tied. That, or she lost her right arm in the war or a freak fishing accident.
• "Never Write About Murder" - uh ... you just did.

PAGE 23~

I wouldn't have minded if she'd slapped me or swore at me. But her calm, unmoved acceptance of the kiss frosted me. It hit me where I lived, in my pride.

Best things about this cover:

• These two covers make a nice pair: "Things To Do With a Girl When You're Armed": "You can grab her like this ... or kiss her like this ... it's up to you."
• Here's a sexless sex scene if I've ever seen one. He looks ... wooden. "Let's see, I put my gun ... here, and my left hand reaches around like ... so. OK. What do I do with my lips again?" Etc.
• The painting here does nothing to up the eros. The paint looks hastily daubed on. She has that horrid bottle-blond rubbery head look (see the "Finger Man" cover), and rarely have I been so unmoved by so much female skin.
• "A Car, A Girl and A Gun" - or "Copywriter Gives Up, Decides Life's Meaningless" - that's him there, plummeting over that cliff in the car.

PAGE 123~

Deal grabbed him by the shirt front, yanked him from the sofa, and backhanded the expressionless face. Blood trickled from the corner of the flat lips but Chiong did not cry out.

~RP