Paperback 953: Spill the Jackpot / A.A. Fair (Dell R117)

Paperback 953: Dell R117 (1st thus, 1962)

Title: Spill the Jackpot
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 9.5/10

Best things about this cover:

• So. Great. It's like a rogue's gallery of hot and shady '60s people.
• Redhead's cigarette is freaking me out. Like some sixth finger that got horribly bent backwards.
• Just genius to use the margins of the cover this way. The encroachment of text, to the point of total visual dominance, is of course one of the most lamentable trends in paperback history. This cover responds to that trend not by shrinking the art (which often happened) but by incorporating the text into the art, making the margins the place of real action. It's superior cover design.

Best things about this back cover:

• Man, that "VEGAS" font is god-awful—totally out of sync, period-wise, with the cool-modern front cover.
• Oh wow, that's a rake. I had to look at that visual element very closely to figure that out. This back cover is the Bizarro version of the front cover, i.e. it's Terribly designed.
• "Jaded pleasure seekers"! I relate to these people. JPS4LIFE!

Page 123~

Somehow, looking at her, you felt she hadn't been to bed and that she wasn't accustomed to going to sleep before daylight.

Coincidentally, Vampire Weekend was playing on the radio when I typed this out.

~RP

P.S. I found this immaculate Detective Book Club offer card sleeping safely in the pages of this book.

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Paperback 950: The Screaming Cargo / J.M. Flynn // The Bullet-Proof Martyr / James A. Howard (Ace Double F-130)

Paperback 950 (!): Ace Double F-130 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Screaming Cargo / The Bullet-Proof Martyr
Author: J.M. Flynn / James A. Howard
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Estimated value: $10
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• Screaming babies in the cargo hold? Jeez. Grim.
• Love the Telly Savalas-esque skyward-looking guy. "Who loves you, screaming babies?"
• Cool font. Cool tie. Weird lambada-on-the-tarmac.

Best things about this other cover:

• This looks like someone's intense hate-drawing diary. Ugly, dumb, red.
• Why is the eye candy so tiny? The visual equivalent of burying the lede.
• Her left arm is the dumbest thing I've seen in 950 paperbacks worth of posing. "How's that, baby? You like it when mama puts just one arm in her jacket? Yeah, you like it." What the hell?

Page 23~  (there are no p. 123s) (from The Screaming Cargo)

She was more girl than woman. She wore her hair in a pony tail—soft dark hair. She wore a too-tight blouse and short shorts, and she had a face that might've been innocent a few weeks earlier.

A few weeks earlier ... you know, before she took up knitting. Nobody comes back from that, man. Nobody.

~RP

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Paperback 881: Please Write For Details / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal R1922)

Paperback 881: Gold Medal R1922 (unknown ptg, 1968)

Title: Please Write for Details
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Uncredited [Mitchell Hooks]

Estimated value: $5-8

[Donation to the collection courtesy of L. Gagne]

Best things about this cover:

• Love how all those dorky guys are checking her out, but she's swiveled around to face you because, well, you're doing the same thing, big boy. She has the best "Like what you see?" face ever.
• I am not familiar with MacDonald's comedy writing. Most everything else I have by him is Travis McGee stuff.
• This book takes place at a "Mexican art colony," in case you're looking at the dorky guys and going "WTF?"

 Best things about this back cover:

• "Why, yes. Yes, I *do* enjoy those three things. You've piqued my interest. I *will* write for details. Thanks for your help."
• That first sentence is an epic, loony, self-parodying masterpiece. Can you hitch your starload to a bent?
• Great hyphen confusion. I read "love-lies" as "lies one tells about love"; but it's just "lovelies."
• John D. MacDonald, still staring down that fly on the ceiling.

Page 123~

Torrigan had the usual ideas, all right, but he was a lot easier to handle. Hinting you could be a real hell of a painter if he'd let you learn all about Life from him. Always trying to load your drinks. And that tired game that goes I've-just-got-my-arm-around-you-because-I'm-just-a-big-friendly-guy. No trick in handling him.

Nothing like a good, withering take-down of a leering phony. I like the knowing, implicitly female perspective. This seems like it might be worth reading.

~RP

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Paperback 858: Only in L.A. / Murray Sinclair (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 858: Black Lizard unnumbered (1st ptg, 1988)

Title: Only in L.A.

Author: Murray Sinclair

Cover artist: Kirwan

Estimated value: $8-12

Best things about this cover:

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the first Pop Sensation book with a "1988" date.
• It's like she's daring the peeping toms. "You want some of this? Well, let's go! … Pussies."
• That is one of the '80s-est ladies ever. She looks like she's getting ready to go out to audition to be the lady on the cover of Duran Duran's "Rio." Or maybe she's headed out to visit her friend, this lady:

[Artist I'm thinking of is Patrick Nagel.]

And the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, so much high-contrast teeny tiny white text. Gah. Horrible.
• Back cover copy makes the story sound routine: "the usual political work"? "You know, blah blah whiskey blah blah corruption blah blah guns gutter dogs sleaze gun butt noir."
• This sounds like a slightly more interesting "Taken."

Page 123~

Aikens had talked turkey. He hadn't made a mistake or bullshitted me. I told my soul brother I wanted to go over there. 

Long story short, totally not-racist white narrator's black friend "Aikens" gets blown apart by gun fire before the page is over.

~RP

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Paperback 691: Tutor From Lesbos / A.P. Williams (Beacon B731X)

Paperback 691: Beacon B731X (PBO, 1964)

Title: Tutor From Lesbos
Author: A.P. Williams
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $55


Best thing about this cover:

• OK, Lesson One: how to sit in a chair.
• In order of awesome: sunglasses, butterfly chair, wig, sweater set.
• I'm imagining the frugal parents who are excited about this ad. "'No charge'! What a deal!"

Best things about this back cover:

• The question we've all been asking all our lives.
• "Love" quote unquote hahaha. Oh, Ginny, Ginny, who can I turn to ...?
• "Consider the emotions of..." Well, that's a new angle.
• "Feel the despair of..." Ditto.
• So the dad *watches*? Gross/hot.
• LOL uncontrollably at the last four sentences on this back cover.

Page 123~

[Hamilton] [...] worked at his desk until lunchtime, when he walked into several downtown shops and finally purchased an ugly gray fedora and a pair of sunglasses. These would render him inconspicuous, he figured, and enable him to blend in with the other drinkers at the lesbian bar. He had heard that dark glasses were worn as a badge by the city's questionable element.

Finally I understand why lesbians are constantly hitting on me every time I put on a fedora and sunglasses. Thank you, "Tutor From Lesbos"—aptly, you have taught me so much. Also, I would join a gang / club / sleaze appreciation society called "The Questionable Element."

~RP

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Paperback 650: Hospital Hill / Adeline McElfresh (Dell First Edition B201)

Paperback 650: Dell First Edition B201 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Hospital Hill
Author: Adeline McElfresh
Cover artist: Bob Abbett

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Smoking doctor. Smoking car. Smoking lady friend. Like flying, being a doctor used to be so fucking glamorous.
• I hate when reality shatters my dreams.
• If there were a Hall of Fame for author names, I'd immediately induct Adeline McElfresh.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like how the ellipsis makes it look like Doctor Chris Chiselface is thinking the whole thing.
• I think the cover nicely captures his noble ideals (/sarcasm).

Page 123~

Old Mrs. Pearce was in the kitchen, nursing a steaming bowl filled with a greenish, pungent-smelling liquid. She greeted him with a sly smile.

"I reckon I'm catched," she wheezed.

Chris grinned. "I guess you are, Grandma."

Chris then shot her in the head for being a witch.

~RP

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Paperback 631: The Jerk / adapted by Carl Gottlieb

Paperback 631: Warner Books 92-626 (PBO, 1979)

Title: The Jerk
Author: intro and text adaptation by Carl Gottlieb
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• So I own this for some reason.
• It's not a novelization so much as a movie still picture book. Every page has a shot from the movie and some accompanying text. I know, I'm really selling it.
• I always hated those little paddle ball game thingies.

Best things about this back cover:

• Peter Sellers-esque photo spread.
• I didn't know a book could "star" someone.
• Steve Martin's stand-up was a revelation to me (via my dad) when I was a kid.

Page 123~


Carl Reiner, ladies & gentlemen. Carl Reiner.

~RP

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Paperback 545: The Marauders / Michael McGann (Jove 10150-8)

Paperback 545: Jove 10150-8 (PBO, 1989)

Title: The Marauders
Author: Michael McGann
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

Best things about this cover:

• Countdown to a gay porn movie shoot in 5, 4, 3 ...
• Russell Crowe, Joe Piscopo, Some Weasel Face, Eric Roberts, Lorenzo Lamas, and ... That Bald Asian Guy are ... The Marauders!
• If you think those guns aren't cock substitutes, just check out how bachelor #3 is holding his. He's stroking its balls / presenting it to you on a platter / begging you to admire it.
• "We used to have shirts, but our bodies were so hot they just burned away. Now all we wear is this fire-retardant kevlar stuff. Marauders!"
• I want one of these patches to sew onto my ... I'm gonna say 'underwear.'
• "From the Creators [plural] of The Guardians" ... and yet it's written by Michael McGann [singular]. One shape-shifting, multiple-personalitied, gun- and gay-porn-loving guy.
• After a nuclear war, wouldn't these guys be a little ... anti-climactic, actually.

Best things about this back cover:

• Nothing.
• KGB Chairman, ha ha! Good call, 1989. Way to predict the fyooture.
• "There's a first time for everything—especially death" is an unintentionally great line. Pearls of wisdom, compliments of ... The Marauders!

Page 123~

The two men walked out of the car. Jack looked over his shoulder. "Buddha? Can you loan me your rifle for a moment?"

In case you were wondering what they were gonna call That Bald Asian Guy. Now you know.

~RP

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Paperback 515: The Sexually Promiscuous Female / Benjamin Morse, M.D. (Monarch MB 535)

Paperback 515: Monarch Books MB 535 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Sexually Promiscuous Female
Author: Dr. Benjamin Morse, M.D.
Cover artist: Photo cover

Yours for: Not for Sale (gift to the collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• I don't know who this woman is, but ... we would like to announce that we are in love.
• Sorry, Dr. Morse, your "alarming" report is not quelling my desire to go on a cross-country crime jag with Tina here.
• Love the uneven lettering! This is what happens when you shout "PROMISCUOUS" as you leap from a moving train, which you have robbed because you are on a cross-country crime jag with Tina.
• Sexy sunglasses. Gorgeous gams. Casual footwear. All the trademarks of the modern-day whore.
• She'd be in her late-70s today. So if I'm gonna find her, I better act quick.
• Dr. Morse is (according to the title page) also author of "The Lesbian," which I believe had the famous subtitle: "Or So I Imagine"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Frigidity"?! Oh, come ON!
• "Penetrating"!? Really? Phrasing!
• I love how this book's all "beware this trend" when no one, and I mean no one, buying this book is going to see "The Promiscuous Female" as a problem. More like "... and I can find her ... where? You know, to, er, talk her out of her, uh ... lifestyle. Yeah. That's what I'll do. So what's her number?"

Page 123~

A period of unpaid promiscuity, with all its attendant minor heartbreaks, soon conditions the girl to the point where she wants to strike back at the men who have taken advantage of her.

So ... like a promiscuity internship? Nice. Where does one get ... those?

~RP

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Paperback 512: The Restless Romeo / J.X. Williams (Ember Library 346)

Paperback 512: Ember Library 346 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Restless Romeo
Author: J.X. Williams
Cover artist: someone having too much fun

Yours for: Not for Sale (gift to the collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• Romeo got restless, so he did what any restless young man might do: he used his car to hunt women for sport. Really calms the nerves. I hear.
• "These eyes ... fry every night ... for you."
• Who runs with their arms like that? Or is she doing crazed, doped-up calisthenics in the desert? I see: her boyfriend isn't trying to run her down—he's slowly backing away. Yes, her body is pretty amazing, but you do *not* want her attention when she's like this. "Please don't around please don't turn around please..."
• I believe this is the picture for which the phrase "hopped up on goofballs" was invented.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Romeo," eh? I must have missed the part in Shakespeare's play where Romeo snatches Juliet and takes her to the basement of his villa.

Page 123~

Waves of heat invaded his body. Thoroughly stimulated by her weight, he dug his fingers into the blooming bottom and squirmed until she had difficulty holding him. Her cheeks, feeling damp and massive, began a tortured and rhythmic writhing.

Since when are "damp and massive" butt cheeks sexy? Not sure what I should expect from a guy who (on the previous page) describes breasts as "lurching mounds," but ... I mean, there's unsexy, and then there's The Opposite Of Sexy. Yikes.

~RP

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Paperback 503: TCOT Sunbather's Diary / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 4514)

Paperback 503: Pocket Books 4514 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Among my favorite McGinnis covers. I love that he's got the gorgeous woman in a discernible context—great sense of setting and mood. Love her "what the fuck do you want?" stare, and her glasses, and the texture and angles of the wooden walkway, and her hair, to say nothing of the sun-shaped title.
• If you look at her ass (and why not?), it looks like this woman's bikini was originally somewhat larger, and pink, and then it was changed to skimpier, and black. Good choice. Love the little side-tie.
• Never was too sure what was supposed to be conveyed by that arrow inside the author's initials. "Perry Mason goes down ... to the beach? gets down ... to business? takes the elevator down ... to the cafeteria?"

Best things about this back cover:

• More arrows, pointing in random directions. "Perry Mason goes around ... the block to the deli?"
• Down to the penny. Back when pennies mattered, dagnabbit!
• OMG, is Perry Mason the killer!? I have to read this! (is what no one reading the back cover would say)

Page 123~

Paul put the receiver to his ear, said, "Yes. Hello," then listened for a moment, said, "The deuce!" then turned to Perry Mason.

"Okay, Perry," he said, "the fat's in the fire."

"What?"

Even mild-mannered Perry Mason found Paul's refusal to communicate in anything but old-time exclamations and idiomatic phrases exasperating.

~RP

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Paperback 495: Bridge of Sand / Frank Gruber (Bantam S3926)

Paperback 495: Bantam S3926 (1st ptg, 1969)

Title: Bridge of Sand
Author: Frank Gruber
Cover artist: Uncredited [Sanford Kossin]

Yours for: $12

Best things about this cover:

• Very late for my collection. I own it because a. it has a fully painted cover (in an era when these were giving way to the Tyranny of Text—branding/author's name inflation); and b. it's by Frank Gruber, writing here at the tail end of a loooooong career that began in the pulps (his "Pulp Jungle"—a memoir of his early writing career, is very much worth reading).
• That said, I don't love this painting, or, more specifically, this color scheme. It definitely conveys "oppressively hot and sandy," but I just end up wishing I had clearer views of all the interesting characters. Dude in the fez wants his time in the spotlight!
• World's tiniest minarets, stage left.
• Apparently this guy's gun holds hand lotion: "Damn dry Egyptian weather ... wreaks havoc on my soft skin."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Amazonian lesbian!" Top that. You can't. Game over.
• VENGEANCE! My penchant for tales of vengeance probably also had something to do with my buying this book.
• I call this painting "Someone Really Doesn't Like Brown Mustard."
• Violence should not come in "potpourri" form. Really hard to take seriously.
• "Fills the cauldron of suspense ... decants the wine of mystery ... warms the tea kettle of perversion ... etc.!"

Page 123~

It was in Ahmed Fosse's power to reveal that fame to Charles Holterman, to dangle the possibility of it before Holterman, and then ... to destroy it, just before he killed Holterman.

Ahmed knew a little bit about fame from his brother Bob. Also, this paragraph really needs one more "Holterman."

~RP

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Paperback 369: Just For Kicks / Donna Powell (Satan Press 111)

Paperback 369: Satan Press 111 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Just For Kicks
Author: Donna Powell
Cover artist: [Gene Bilbrew]

Yours for: $50


Best things about this cover:

• His eyes! His teeth! His lopsided ribcage!! His ankle!!! Dear lord make it stop!
• Those women are fantastically grotesque. A disquieting combo of hot & weird & malproportioned
• I can't tell if they are flirting with him or about to kill him. Veronica seems only seconds from bringing that drink smashing down on the mummy's head...

Best things about this back cover:

• A drug-fueled, sex-soaked road trip to Mexico sounds fun. The "indignities and perversions they are subjected to" while "prisoners" ... that could go either way.
• "Ironic"—HA ha. Yes, when I looked at the front cover, my first thought was, "O. Henry!"
• The condition of this book is &*^%ing unreal.
  

Page 123~ (pleasebeawesomepleasebeawesomepleasebeawesome)

"This place gives me the willies," she glanced toward the stage where the Shetland was still lunging away at the diminutive red-head. And she still looked bored.

Uh ... oh. Oh my. That's ... something. Yet somehow the comma splice in first sentence is bothering me at least as much as the horse-on-girl action.

~RP

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Paperback 322: The Syndic / Cyril M. Kornbluth (Bantam 1317)

Paperback 322: Bantam 1317 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Syndic
Author: Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: uncredited (I want it to be Richard Powers, but who knows?)

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Are we not men? We are DEVO!"
• In the background, generic scifi cover ... but in the foreground: Dirk Studly models his Kanye3000 spex and his real boss new flashlight holder.
• I love this guy. The cover dies without him. "I'm here to rescue your cover, ma'am. Don't worry."
• "Syndic?" The "-ate" was just too much of a mouthful? I am pronouncing this title "The Sin Dick," and hope you do the same.

Best things about this back cover:

• More outrageous exclamation point action. Love it! Start with a timid "Tomorrow?" and end with a big fucking exclamation point slamming down on your cover: "Hell yes, tomorrow!"
• Oooh, the "twenty-first century" ... I'm going to look out my window now and there better be little people running frantically through sand pits, away from a dystopic city and toward their badass, flashlight-wielding savior, or I'm going to feel very ripped off.

Page 123~

"I'm Ken Oliver, a figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils and Etchings Corporation. Dr. Latham sent me here for—what do you call it?—a biopsy."

~RP

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