Paperback 345: Devil Ray, Devil Woman / Seymour Shubin (Beacon 167)

Paperback 345: Beacon 167 (PBO, 1960—Australia ed.)

Title: Devil Ray, Devil Woman
Author: Seymour Shubin
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: not for sale (gift of Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• "Do you like my hair up, or ..." "Yeah yeah, sure, now are you gonna get naked or not?"
• OK, which is it? A Flaming Story or a Sophisticated, Dramatic Tale. I got no time for this wishy-washy in-between crap.
• "To Most" is my very favorite part of the cover copy. I mean, "in search of forbidden excitement" makes so much more sense, but any reasonably qualified copy writer could come up with that. It takes a true master of whatthefuckery to rephrase it so that we're left wondering not just what the excitement is, but for whom it is not "forbidden" but entirely licit.
• She has a nice figure. I'm just sayin'...
• I hope she's standing well away from the bed, bec. otherwise she is a giant or that smoking (!) hot guy is criminally diminutive.
• That's one slab of a bed.
• Worst title! "The woman, she is a like a Devil Ray, in that she is devilish, and ... Devil Ray has the word "devil" in it, so ..." Imagination!

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. It's a text bloodbath back here.
• So this is an ordinary soft-core sex novel, with stock footage from a Jacques Cousteau special? I can't wait.

Page 123~

"Sure no one a beer?" and now Tony was in the doorway.

I swear to you that I have typed that exactly as written, character for character.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

PS I *thought* I'd seen this cover somewhere before. Well, I hadn't, but here's something close: Paperback 63, Variation on a Theme:

Paperback 336: The Case of the Daring Decoy / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 6001)

Paperback 336: Pocket Books 6001 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Case of the Daring Decoy
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• The bottom 1/2 inch is horribly soiled; otherwise, this copy is close to perfect, and words can't describe how much I love this cover painting.
• Well, maybe they can. I think that if you look up "Hot Mess" in the dictionary, this picture is there. Sexy dissolution personified. All that orange, and the booze, and the smokes, and the stairway to nowhere, just add to the smoldering hotness of the whole scene. First rate cover art. Just wish I had an artist credit!

Best things about this back cover:

• Perry Mason looks like somebody's grandma. Pancake make-up much, grandma?
• Random orangeing of words. That's a new tactic.
• "Hell's bells!" is a great way to lead off your back cover copy.

Page 123~

"You knew her rather intimately, I believe."
"Are you making an accusation?"
"I'm asking a question."

Technically, you were making an insinuating statement, Perry, but ... I'll allow it.

~RP

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Paperback 333: Fighting Generals / Phil Hirsch (Pyramid G496)

Paperback 333: Pyramid G496 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Fighting Generals
Editor: Phil Hirsch
Cover artist: Mel Crair

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Well, insofar as you can describe the "best things" about Nazis ... I'd say that is some fine portraiture. I love the expression on Rommel's face. He looks a bit like Colonel Klink. Accident?
• How many insignias does one man need?
• This title is superlame. I can't wait for the sequel, "Peaceful Generals." That, or "Fleeing Generals"

Best things about this back cover:

• Hmmm. Design on this is pretty nice. Staggered photos, staggered descriptions, on a two-tone back ground. Kind of evokes the stripes on a flag. Kind of evokes chaos.
• Of course the Russian sounds the worst. Hello, 1960! Fuck you, Commies!

Page 123~

The stooped old man looked harmless—but Hitler's killers knew he was a deadly threat to the Nazi empire!

This may be the first time my "Page 123" has been an above-the-chapter-title teaser. Dynamic!

~RP

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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

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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]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 53

Title: The Girl With a Secret (Crest d961, 1st ptg, 1960)
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

• Love the eerie, vertiginous, slightly puke-green staircase. Worthy of dungeons or Dali-esque nightmares.
• Her "secret" appears to be that despite being a grown woman, she likes to slide down banisters. Or else she has a severed head in that bag. One or the other.

• Oooh, the Oakland Tribune. Well la-di-dah.
• "WEB OF TERROR" — get it? Author's name is CHARLOTTE Armstrong. And she has created a WEB OF TERROR. CHARLOTTE'S WEB ... OF TERROR! "Wilbur, no!!!!!"
• "Then on their honeymoon she stumbled on a deadly secret" — such a promising line. So disappointing to know that the secret is just a stupid scrap of paper.

Page 123~

Alice breathed in the reality of Tony-alive and Tony-here. She didn't much care about anything else at the moment.

"Tony-alive" was, of course, the very unsuccessful follow-up to Hasbro's "Baby Alive."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 46

Title: Murder is the Pay-Off (Popular Library 50-426, 1st ptg, 1960)
Author: Leslie Ford (she can't be stopped)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $7

• "Here, hold this dead man against your chin. It'll stop the swelling."
• She looks like a lady in a commercial for some cleanser that gets blood stains out of your carpet.
• The horrific palette on Ms. Ford's books continues unabated.
• "Wallop" is a funny word.

• I'm not sure you want to suggest that the reader has to be "dragged along."
• "GUARANTEE!" — I can't wait to see what this "full reading satisfaction" is all about.

Page 123~

Swede Carlson's thick hand planted itself quickly in the dark on Gus Blake's knee.

Mmm, I smell full reading satisfaction up ahead ...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 45

Title: The Philadelphia Murder Story (Popular Library SP408, 1960)
Author: Leslie Ford (redefining the word "prolific")
Cover artist: uncredited. Criminally uncredited.

Yours for: $7

• This guy better be a zombie or involved in some kind of performance art because there is no way I'm buying the guy died that way, with his (ghastly) hand lightly fondling a lily pad.
• The hand-flower-face triad is just genius. Absurd, horrific genius. It does not, however, scream "Philadelphia" to me.
• "OK, we got some ideas for the title of your new book. You remember that famous movie, 'The Philadelphia Story?' Yeah, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, right. So we were thinking: 'The Philadelphia ... MURDER ... Story.' Huh? Huh? Whaddya think? Catchy, right? P.S. the cover will feature the undead playing hide-and-seek."

• Talk about giving up — they've not only replicated the front cover painting, but the *front cover blurb* as well.
• Again ... you're saying one thing and I'm seeing another. Didn't see Philadelphia ... not seeing this "web" thing you speak of either.

Page 123~

The people at the Post all had them on their desks for paper weights.

I'm just gonna let that hang there. You can decide for yourself what "them" are.

~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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 7

Title: Death in a White Tie (Fontana Books, 1960)
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Cover artist: John L. Baker (or is that the book owner's signature in the bottom left corner?)

Yours for: make an offer

• New Zealand in the House!
• Uh, that tie is not white.
• Henry was busy entertaining no one with his drunken soft shoe routine when the Rolls Royce came creeping around the corner.
• I contend that there is no way Henry can see that car, despite the fact that he *appears* to be looking at it.
• I would say that Henry looks like he's sliding across a newly waxed floor, but in fact he appears to be levitating.

• Whoa! That is not the author pic I'd use to sell pulp fiction. She looks like she's dreamily recalling the Good Old Days (i.e. the reign of Queen Victoria).
• LOVE the apostrophe-as-abbreviation marker on 'PHONE. Marsh was always so street, always hip to the lingo of kids those days, etc.

Page 123~

"The ball was a great success, I believe."
"Yes. Lady Carrados was born under a star of hospitality. It is always a source of wonderment to me why one ball should be a great success and another offering the same band, caterer and guests an equally great failure."

It is always a source of wonderment to me that anyone ever found aristocrats inherently interesting.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 232: The Bitter Passion / John W. Wadleigh (Hillman Books 153)

Paperback 232: Hillman Books 153 (PBO, 1960)

Title: The Bitter Passion
Author: John W. Wadleigh
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Do you like my left shoulder? Do you? You're not even looking at it? Look at it!"
• John W. Wadleigh won the award for Most Unintentionally Pornographic-Sounding Author Name of 1960
• "A native man" - no, don't tell me, "native" is plenty of information ...
• Did the NY Times really say that a book called "The Bitter Passion" was a "net of passions?" That's just sad.

Best things about this back cover:

• You too, Los Angeles Mirror-News? We get it. "Passions." What else you got?
  
• "There had been several men" - nice euphemism! Way to use the passive voice to skirt the issue of your promiscuity, honey.
• "A novel of two lonely women" - whoa ... another woman? What happened to the "native man?" And how "lonely" are the women? Your answer will go a long way to determining whether I crack this book or not.

Page 123~

-In time, in time, I said. Be patient or you'll ruin yourself. Later you will remember. My words will come back to you, years from now, and you will understand, so trust me, yes?

-Yes, he said.

Without understanding any of it.

Silly non-English-speaking native. You'll never understand the eloquence and wisdom of ... whoever this chick is.

~RP

P.S. Thanks to Brian Cassidy for a very nice write-up of both "Pop Sensation" and "Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword" in his "Fine Books & Collections" blog.

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 179: Kill Now, Pay Later / Robert Kyle (Dell First Edition B178)

Paperback 179: Dell First Edition B178 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Kill Now, Pay Later
Author: Robert Kyle (pen name of Robert Terrall)
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Nearly everything. It's quintessential. It expresses everything I love about this era - a sense of cool combined with a sense of something fading, something ending ... a kind of twilight. These two look like their best days are behind them, just behind them, and it is only beginning to dawn on them. Look, she's already forgotten how to hold a martini glass. And he seems bemused by his gun. Poor, poor, hot people.
• "Remember when we used to find wandering daughters, fight thugs, and have hot sex in my mid-century modern apartment? ... good times ..."
• Love the whimsical font - great contrast with the smoky, languid, gin-laden miasma of grief and nostalgia that pervades the bar scene
  
• Robert McGinnis could draw the hell out of a woman when he wanted to. He and Maguire are the kings of Great Girl Art. That bare foot ... I'm not a foot man, myself, but man that is cute bordering on adorable.
• Honey, I officially want a padded white semicircular wet bar for Christmas. I'll take up drinking and shooting, and you take up cigarettes, and we'll be in business. I'm not sure what we do about the kid ...

Best things about this back cover:

• Ben Gates is Looking At You
• "Dacron and worsted" - wtf? That sounds like a buddy cop show waiting to happen.
• "Contact was total" - HA ha. That kind of writing takes balls.
• So ... she tasted like a caterpillar soaked in champagne? I don't want to know how anyone would know what that tastes like.
• The back cover is ... continued on page 1!? That's a very interesting sales technique that I've seen only once before.

Page 123~

What she saw in her living room cured her of the giggles.

That is a great line - the opening line of a new chapter. How could you not read on?

~RP

PS Thanks to Duane Swierczynski for pointing out that McGinnis also painted the cover for the recent reprint of this title (published by Hard Case Crime). I prefer the original cover, but the new one definitely has its charms:

Paperback 164: The Boomerang Clue / Agatha Christie (Dell D340)

Paperback 164: Dell D340 (1st ptg, 1960)
Title: The Boomerang Clue
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: William Teason

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Well, there's something you don't normally associate with Agatha Christie: BONDAGE.
• I love love love how her arms coupled with the back of the chair form a (very ironic) valentine! The red background only heightens the effect. Don't even get me started on how she kinda looks like a Catholic school girl who is at least mildly ashamed of the predicament she has gotten herself into... Or is that a look not of shame, or fear, but of coyness? Clearly, I have my own, private version of the story of how she came to be in that chair.
  
• Most of my Teason covers (lots of late 50s/60s Dells) don't have people on them. Clearly he should have done more people. The hands alone are gorgeous.

Best things about this cover:

• More broken windows!
• Random rope - did she escape!?
• I love how the copy on the back cover is typeset as if it were a poem

Page 123~

"To begin with," said Bobby, plunging [ed.: !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!], "I'm not really a chauffeur although I do work in a garage in London. And my name isn't Hawkins - it's Jones - Bobby Jones. I come from Marchbolt in Wales."

The story of a golfing legend gone deep, deep undercover.

~RP

Paperback 134: Letter of Marque / Andrew Hepburn (Ace D-440)

Paperback 134: Ace D-440 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Letter of Marque
Author: Andrew Hepburn
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "My these seas are certainly heaving ..."
• Jebus, look how nicely she has gift-wrapped those things for us. They're Tremendous!
• OMG is she dead? Her neck! Between the garrote and the cover crease, terrible things appear to be happening to her head. Look at her glassy eyes. Is she tied to the mast of the world's gayest ship? Is she an ethereal sea goddess emanating from the ships below? I think I'll just stare at her breasts some more and try not to think about it too much.
• "Replete with action ..." - well, at least we know the guy at the Herald-Tribune did well on his SATs.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Action and more action is Author Hepburn's motto ..." - o man that's sad. I don't know what's sadder - that he has a motto at all, or that it's so lame.
• Is it wrong that I think his girlfriend's name looks vaguely like "Madeleine de Vagina?"
• "Stockton is a swashbuckling hero who's not afraid to ... cut through red tape!?" OK, that was totally *not* in your motto, dude. Boooring. Hepburn needs to get some lessons from Rafael Sabatini, and "Capt. Stockton," if that is his real name, needs to call Errol Flynn for some pointers.

Page 123~

She was stiff and weatherly, and the broad track of her wake gave evidence of her effortless pace, as she rose over the small seas with no check to her speed.

I ... think that was the sex scene.

RP~

Paperback 131: This Violent Land / William H. Jacobs (Monarch Books 163)

Paperback 131: Monarch Books 163 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: This Violent Land
Author: William H. Jacobs
Cover artist: again, uncredited

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• "Stop right there, Henry Fonda! Now ... give me my scarf back, nice and easy."
• "Raw" and "earthy" means people are doin' it.
• Now that I look at her hands more closely, I'm not convinced she aims to fire it. She's sort of ... stroking the ... underside of the ... shaft? "Oh, is this big thing yours?"
• She is undeniably hot. I mean - fantastic. Everything a rifle-toting cover girl should be. I have a Girls with Guns collection, so I ask you, how was I supposed to not buy this book?

Best things about this back cover:

• OMG the names of these people! Genius!
• "'Joanna' doesn't sound ... I don't know, exotic enough." "How about ... Zoanna, sir?" "Brilliant!"
• I love a good Malabar every now and then. "Hard-bitten?" When I get through with them, yes.
• "Earthy" again! Unless they literally smear soil on themselves, I'm going to be very disappointed in this book.

Page 123~

He saw again the woman with the scarred face, her white legs parting, the black devil's cup beckoning. "Make me a woman! Make me a woman!" Soft, warm, melting. He was on the road to hellfire.

"Black devil's cup?!" That's a new one to me.

Earthy!

~RP

Paperback 128: A Touch of Inifinity b/w The Man With Nine Lives / Harlan Ellison (Ace Double D-413)

Paperback 128: Ace D-413 (PBO / PBO, 1960)

Titles: A Touch of Infinity / The Man With Nine Lives
Author: Harlan Ellison / Harlan Ellison
Cover artists: Ed Valigursky / Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• Harlan Ellison is a legend. A pop fiction legend. Smart, funny, imaginative, and just a great, great, page-turning writer. Hence the price of this book (he's super duper collectible).
• That said, this cover is not the most imaginative scifi cover I've ever seen. By a longshot. Spaceship that looks like prototype for Doctor Octopus shoots its oddly fiery gun at some unseen enemy / turkey buzzard while befuddled and square-jawed man with slinkies on his limbs looks on in what I'm guessing is disgust.
• The front part of the main ship's underside doubles as a waffle iron.

Best things about this cover:

• Scratch that. Eight lives.
• "I'd like to thank the Emmy voters for AAAAAAAAARGH!"
• This is how each episode of "American Idol" will end in Season 116. In fact, this is very much how I remember the moment that Kelly Clarkson beat Justin Guarini in Season 1.
• This painting looks like a still from a futuristic Christian rock video.
• The design and concept here are a mess. He mastered a maze ... but his head is being electrified by a giant statue and some eerily headphoned judges ... and he also is a cat or owns a lot of cat food.

Page 123~

"I still need that job done on my face, Patooch," Cal Emory said to the little cellulist.

-from "The Man with Nine Lives"

~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

Paperback 89: Bloodline for Murder (Emmett McDowell) / In at the Kill (Emmett McDowell) (Ace Double D-445)

Paperback 89: Ace Double D-445 (PBO, 1960 / PBO, 1960)

Titles: Bloodline to Murder / In at the Kill
Authors: Emmett McDowell / Emmett McDowell [who!?]
Cover artists: uncredited / uncredited :(

Yours for: SOLD 5/22/08


Best thing about this cover:

• I am in love with this woman. Absolutely, stone cold in love. Never mind that I can't see her face - I would run away with this woman. Anyone who can pull off the combination of that dress with those shoes, who has gams like that, wears thigh-highs, and packs heat. Oh ... yeah. I hope she plugs that trench-coated ghoul in the doorway and hits the road with me (note to wife: I'm mostly kidding)
• This book has been man-handled, but the great thing about vintage paperbacks is that manhandling often adds to the coolness of their look. The diagonal creases on this cover somehow work seamlessly into the whole overall design, which is already pretty angular - directing attention to the west and south west of the cover, where the action is.
• "An Axe For The Family Tree" - I have got to start collecting tag lines, writing them down, and ranking them according to all-time greatness. This one is good, not great - to be great, she would have to be hiding an axe in her hosiery.
• I like that she is painted in a completely different, more detailed/naturalistic style than anything else on the cover. Dude in the background looks like he's in an early 80s, Tron-esque video game.

PAGE 123~

Helm put down his bottle of beer. He was no longer smiling and his face was a shade redder.
"Knox, how would you like to get thrown in jail?"
"I hope that's a rhetorical question," said Jonathan.
"Rhetorical, hell! This is murder..."

Best things about this back cover:

• It's a front cover!
• I believe that this woman is a. blind (where is she looking?), b. wearing a wig, c. about to break into song, and d. tied up in the most ornate and inefficient way I've ever seen.
• I love our shooter - paranoid and shooting at imaginary enemies.
• This cover looks like experimental theater. Really, really bad experimental theater. Possibly about lesbians (No? OK, you tell me what that giant pink/lavender "L" is doing there?).
• I Love girly colors on my hard-boiled crime novels. God bless the boldness and unconventionality of mid-century cover art designers.
• Her shoes match the giant "L" and font color
• "Anyone for Murder?" - HA ha. How in the world does tennis terminology relate here? Furthermore, WTF is this?

PAGE 123~

Sorry, this book ends on page 108 (!?!?!). Well ... OK, here's PAGE 23~

"Could I see your credentials?"
"Of course," said Jonathan, and he took out his wallet and showed him a ten dollar bill.

-RP

Paperback 42: Bantam A2096

Paperback 42: Bantam A2096 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Three Roads
Author: Ross Macdonald
Cover artist: Uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• The story of one woman's feverish nightmares about her missing pink pump with matching pom pon ("Rosebud...")
• Is this a picture of the "stolen passion" or the "brutal murder?"
• Why does her left leg disappear in a smoky mist? Did she forget to take something off the stove?
• Ross Macdonald was a writing star in the mystery world until he was caught using steroids. Now his name is forever haunted by the dreaded asterisk.
• I love the magical sheets, which defy physics in order to give her ass the barest of cover and thus prevent us from enjoying an unbroken line of head-to-toe nudity. Cursed sheets!

Best things about this back cover:

• If you liked this book, you'll love the sequel: MEMORY MURDERED ABSORBING!
• This is what a book looks like when it's designed by someone with a punctuation fetish. For god's sake, it's not Spanish - why are there punctuation marks before the word "MEMORY?"

Here we find out the real reason for the asterisk on the front cover. Kenneth Millar (his real name) wrote under his own name, then John Ross Macdonald, until John D. MacDonald started to make a splash, and then people got confused. This book was published at the height of that confusion, clearly. Eventually, he'd stick with Ross Macdonald (the first "d" is not capitalized). I have written about this guy. Spent days working through his correspondence and other papers at UC Irvine. The best time I ever had being an academic. It was like being ... well, a detective. Hot.

RP