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 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]

2 books handed to me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Book 1

Doug Peterson handed me two books during the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last weekend. He's a crossword constructor, and a regular reader of this blog. As you'll see, he has a good eye for quality paperback product. To wit:

Title: The Scrambled Yeggs (GM 770, 2nd ptg, '59)
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Barye Phillips, I think

Yours for: Not For Sale


There are two things and two things only to say about this cover:

1. YEGGS!
2. SPANKING!

Hot on two counts.

• I'm with him 'til "plastic surgery," where the metaphor (simile, I guess) goes south for me. One of the things I like about vintage women (by which I mean the kinds of women that vintage paperbacks tend to showcase) is that they come from a time before plastic surgery started making (some) women look like scary clowns.
• "I'm broad-minded" = gold.
• Always good to close with a Whitesnake lyric

Page 123~

In the car, I put the gun on the seat to my right and pulled away from the curb. And I was hoping that the same guys who got Kelly would come after me. Those boys needed killing bad and right then I felt ready, willing and able — and maybe even a little eager.

Shell Scott, doing his best Mike Hammer impression (Scott is funnier and less frightening)

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 40

Title: Out of the Dark (Ace G-557, ca. 1965)
Author: Ursula Curtiss
Cover artist: Schinella (?!) [he couldn't decide betw. "scintilla" and "shinola," so split the difference...]

Yours for: $5

• Looks like someone got angry and took it out on lavender.
• So ... a headless snow queen in a purple fur coat / dress is preparing to bowl the freshly severed head of a pretty blonde down some unseen runway, while Peter Falk looks on ...
• God, that hand. It's gonna haunt me.

• That militaristic font simply doesn't work in hot pink.
• "[Ring ... Ring...] ... Uh, hi boss, about that "Outta the Dark" novel: we can't think of nothin' to say so we found this quote from some guy named Boucher and we're just gonna fill up the back cover with that, OK? ... Yeah, he summarizes the book and everything. We don't gotta do nothin'. ... awesome. Thanks [click]."

Page 123~

Erect, even majestic with his flowing hair, Sip set out blindly for his sister's house.

To recap: this book has a character named "Sip." He apparently looks like Fabio.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 276: The Hunger and the Hate / H. Vernor Dixon (Gold Medal 454)

Paperback 276: Gold Medal 454 (PBO, 1955)

Title: The Hunger and the Hate
Author: H. Vernor Dixon
Cover artist: James Meese

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm hungry." "Well, I hate you." The End.
• His hat is fabulous but his tie looks like something he ripped off an early-80s New Wave keyboard player.
• "The world was his and conquered" has to be one of the most inelegant and awkward opening gambits in mainstream paperback cover copy history. "The world was his ... and then a woman took it all a way" would work. So would "He conquered the world ... but then a woman took it all away." So would "He was a traveling salesman with a hankering for Mexican restaurant waitresses..."

Best things about this back cover:

• Crop. Zoom. Reverse image. Change to B&W. There. Now you can really feel the Hunger. And the Hate.
• Jeez, it's a whole frickin' short story back here. Concision!
• What's his name again? I forgot ... you only said it four times.
• "Hey, ya know what a good place for a paragraph break would be? The middle of a sentence." (see last two "paragraphs")

Page 123~

He thought of Truly and dissected her in his mind and liked little of what he found and wondered why he had been such a damned fool as to accept her invitation.

Strangely, the part of this sentence I hate most is "as to."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 269: Night Squad / David Goodis (Gold Medal s1083)

Paperback 269: Gold Medal s1083 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Night Squad
Author: David Goodis
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• One of the noirest, hardboiliest covers I've got. Iconic. Buncha badass fedora-wearing crime-fighters going to war. Strong light/dark contrast (just like the high contrast B&W of classic film noir). There's architectural detail in the dark parts, but you can barely see it. (actually, you can see it on the scan better than you can see it on the actual book ... weird)
  
• Love the up-shot angle. Gives the guy in the doorway and the whole building a looming, larger-than-life feel. Also like how his descent of the staircase reflects the cover copy: "... and sent him down into the brutal throbbing heart of the slums."
• Love the sickly green pall cast by the lamps. Also love the comically worried face of Fedora #2. Also love the wee policeman poised to billyclub the @#$# out of the next guy who looks at him funny.

Best things about this back cover:

• Blah.
• I thought it said "rocket boys" the first time I read it, and I wondered why the cops and NASA would be fighting over the same guy. "The terrifying story of two agencies bidding to give a man gainful employment!"
• Do you really aim a bullet at someone's head? You aim the gun. Unless your gun is broken and you are reduced to just hurling bullets at some guy's head. I guess that could happen.

Page 123~

"Where you going? McDermott asked.

Corey stopped. He stood with his back to the desk. He waited a few moments, then said, "Second and Addison. I got a date."

"With who?"

"A double gin," Corey said. "Is that all right with you?"

Great dialogue. That last line actually reads "Is that all right you you?" I hope you enjoy my non-silent emendation.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 252: Decisive Years / Marsha Bates (Fabian Z-100)

Paperback 252: Fabian Z-100 (PBO?, 1959?)

Title: Decisive Years
Author: Marsha Bates
Cover artist: uncredited (same guy did a LOT of the Fabian stuff — don't know his name)

Yours for: unavailable (property of "Paperback 250" Contest winner)


Best things about this cover:

• Check out their matching cigarette-holding stances, wrist baubles, and broken left ankles! Double your pleasure!
• "Just don't tell our dad, OK? The runny eggs have caused him disappointment enough for one morning. I mean ... well, just look at him."
• This title is Terrible — like a bad coming-of-age dramedy. "M*A*S*H" : "AfterM*A*S*H" :: "Wonder Years" : "Decisive Years"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Stop! Depression Time!"
• Those girls on the cover are 12 and 13 on what planet?
• AUDYNE = newest entry into "Laughable Names" Hall of Fame
• Oh, man, I can't wait to show you "EACH WON TWO": if you love clownish tales of drunk men dancing in drag at their wives' behest, then yes, "EACH WON TWO" "promises to be a story you'll want to read."
• I've just decided to move "EACH WON TWO" to the top of the list. Look for it as Paperback 253.

Page 123~

"Fine!" Charley said, angering me more. "Now, there's one other little item to take up here. It's about the relationship between Audyne and me. I'm only a foster uncle to her, and my responsibility's been only verbal and charitable."

Yuck. This book is starting to make "Lolita" look family-friendly.

~RP

Paperback 247: Terror in the Streets / Howard Whitman (Bantam A964)

Paperback 247: Bantam A964 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Terror in the Streets
Author: Howard Whitman
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $10


Best thing about this cover:

• Ah, 1950s paranoia at its finest
• Can't a pretty girl get a haircut at 1 a.m. without being team-stalked by tough guys in olive drab suits anymore? What a world ...
• Guns 'n' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" was based on this book cover
• Maguire would eventually learn his lesson: Put Girl In Foreground!

Best things about this back cover:

• You can tell even from this crowded array of scenes that Maguire is a masterful illustrator. Great faces, action, use of light...
• Love the action in the alley by the garbage cans. Smacked his fedora off with a blackjack. That's about as 50s as 50s violence gets. Fedora still in mid-air. Rich.
• Every quote reads like it's coming out of the mouth of Maude Flanders: "Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

Page 123~

The police are hardly interested in, nor would the average police mentality be capable of understanding, such psycho-dynamics. Police are interested in end-results. When an old homosexual is found dead in his hotel room after picking up a man at a bar, the police just put it down as a "fag murder" and go on from there.

~RP

Paperback 214: Black Mail / Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? - Doris Miles Disney (Ace G-506)

Paperback 214: Ace G-506 (1st ptg / 1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Black Mail / Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed?
Author: Doris Miles Disney
Cover artist: uncredited / uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• I believe the mail now prefers to be called "Negro"
• Sexy librarian look is basically ruined by the straitjacket
• "I got rejected from Haverford?! But that was my safety school! Noooo!"
• Awesome psionic powers - that horn-rimmed lady is packing the double whammy: Swirling Disorientation Vortex and Orange Implaing Lance of Death
• "Authentic background," HA ha. "The sky and fields look so real..."

Best things about this cover:

• That guy wins the award for Most Oddly Proportioned Detective. His feet are gigantic. And hazy.
• Experimental art - sometimes good, sometimes bad. Here ... thumbs down. No action? Is it cold or just desolate? What in the hell is on her head? Her vacant look does nothing for me. I'll take the freaked-out letter reader and even the freaky four-eyes on the flip side of this book over this lavender-hooded nobody.
• That title is laughably bad. The whole book should be just one word long: "Pushed."

Page 123~

Monday had figured so consistently in the pattern that this was the day on which he expected the watch to bear fruit.

That is, by far, the most exciting sentence on the page. Reading her prose is like watching paint dry. Beige paint.

~RP

P.S. where are my snarky, enthusiastic commenters? I've actually lost two "Followers" in the past week? Boo hoo. I know I have been *slightly* behind on my postings, but come on - help me out here a little. Give me a push. A little momentum. Somethin'. Thx.

Paperback 211: Bedrooms Have Windows / A. A. Fair (Dell 603)

Paperback 211: Dell 603 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Bedrooms Have Windows
Author: A. A. Fair (pen name of Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Mike Ludlow

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Bedrooms Have Windows" - they sure do. And Blondes Have Mirrors and Peeping Toms Have Trenchcoats.
• That is the see-throughiest blouse I've ever seen anywhere.
• I've always loved that Dell keyhole eye logo.
• I also love the yellow cloth on her ... what do you call that piece of furniture? A vanity!
• Black bra = trouble. I saw "Psycho." I know.

Best things about this back cover:

• Arrows, Ha ha
• "They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike ..."
• Boy, they sure know how to make an author look exciting.
• "Pocket-edition Venus" - that's hot.
• Lam and Cool mysteries are great, and ESG wrote them all (I think) under the A.A. Fair name. Lam and Cool are the Jack Sprat + wife of mystery stories (only they aren't married).

Page 123~

The taffy-haired blonde who was standing in front of the mirror, surveying her partially clothed figure with quite evident approval, was the girl who had picked me up the night before as her escort, and had taken me to the motor court.

~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 151: The Day the Machines Stopped / Christopher Anvil (Monarch Books 478)

Paperback 151: Monarch Books 478 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Day the Machines Stopped
Author: Christopher Anvil
Cover artist: Ralph Brillhart

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Rockets explode! Planes disintegrate into patterns roughly resembling autumn leaves! And ... Wes and Earl have engine trouble.

Wes: "Gee, Earl, I'm stumped."
Earl, wagging finger at car: "Bad car! Bad, naughty car! Oh, why did I buy a used taxi!?"

• If "Nature Reversed Its Laws," shouldn't Wes and Earl and everything else be flying up into space? Either that, or Wes and Earl should be making out.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's all very amusing, but that third paragraph ... it's a little too close-to-home, frankly. All sounds eerily relevant / plausible.
• I hate it when people malign the Dark Ages - they were perfectly serviceable Ages.

Page 123~

"Excuse me a minute." Brian's fists tingled. He was thinking of the last crack on the head, of all the insults and underhanded blows he'd experienced from Carl.

~RP

Paperback 139: Bodies Are Where You Find Them / Brett Halliday (Dell D327)

Paperback 139: Dell D327 (1st New Dell ptg, 1959)

Title: Bodies Are Where You Find Them
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Bob, Bob, Bob - why are you hiding her!!?
• The title of this book is so true
• If you Google ["is where you find it"], you'll be shocked at how many different things apply. Short list: Love, Home, Gold, Faith, Fun, Jazz, Art, etc.
  
• It's actually a very smoky cover, for being awfully short on lady flesh. Dishevelment + those eyes = hot.
• Love the double entendre on "bodies" here
• That Mike Shayne mug is a kind of trademark that appears on nearly all the Dell pbs of Mike Shayne novels. It's a Bob Stanley design, I think

Best things about this back cover:

• Honestly, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Is that the corner of a bedsheet?
• "... lots of money, from way back." Like ... antebellum? Is his wealth all in ducats? Doubloons?
• The only think I like more than an heiress is a "madcap heiress."
• Whoa whoa whoa - that chick on the front cover is dead? If so, that's a cruel, cruel joke.

Page 123~

"Let's just pretend we're invisible," Shayne suggested.

~RP

Paperback 113: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife / Erle Stanley Gardner (Cardinal C-283)

Paperback 113: Cardinal C-283 (3rd ptg, 1958)

Title: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Truly incredible design. Most of these Cardinal reprints are dreadfully boring, but this one is gorgeous - subtle, yet eye-grabbing. I swear to you that until this very second, when I scanned the cover (and thus blew it up to an abnormally large size), I did not notice the silhouette of the man in the fedora inside those slashing black lines. Very nice effect.
• "Half-Wakened Wife" really really wants to be "Half-Naked Wife" every time I look at it.
• I know that when *I* am half-wakened, I can't help but reach blindly for my revolver. It's just normal human instinct.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Chiseler" is one of the all-time great words in the crime lexicon.
• "This is a Genuine Cardinal Edition" - I'm trying to imagine all the bootleg and rip-off versions out there: Oriole? Cardinale? Sorny?
• Gardner's signature remains certifiably insane.

Page 123~

Ellen Cushing once more raised her voice. "I guess you've got to come out, Mother."

~RP

Paperback 96: Jeopardy Is My Job / Stephen Marlowe (Gold Medal s1214)

Paperback 96: Gold Medal s1214 (PBO, 1962)
Title: Jeopardy Is My Job
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: SOLD! (5/19/08)


Best things about this cover:

• "Jeopardy Is My Job: The Alex Trebek Story" - exciting!
• If you cover up or otherwise ignore the dot on the "i" in SPAIN, it really really looks like SPAM. I imagine that Chester Drum there is putting on his spam-handling gloves.
• What is he doing with that glove? Is he about to commit a crime? Or give some kind of probing examination? The whole thing is very O.J.
• I like how he's balancing Madrid on the very tip of his index finger

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, too much text
• "Robbie Hartshorn" - Well that's a silly name. I wonder if his heart (or hart) has been shorn, and if so, what that means.
• "They were paid a monthly stipend to do their drinking on foreign shores" - How do I get that job
  
• This whole description sounded boring to me until I got to "... the cave where Ruy lived with a gypsy woman ..." That has narrative possibilities.

PAGE 123~

"You are free to go," one of the Guardia said in English. "The Colonel says to tell you if you do not leave Rondo before dark," he added, the words heavily accented and hard to understand, "you are being in bad trouble."

~RP