The P. Morrison Donations #8: The Seven Deadly Sisters / Pat McGerr (Dell 412)

The P. Morrison Donations #8

Dell 412 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: The Seven Deadly Sisters
Author: Pat McGerr
Cover artist: Paul C. Burns

Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, man, have you ever looked at a spider web? ... I mean really looked at it man? ... it's crazy."
• No matter how her more "modern" peers mocked her, Sheila preferred to ride her bed sidesaddle.
• Honestly, this cover is a conceptual mess. I have no way of understanding how any of the parts (title, lady, letter, killer list) are supposed to relate to each other. It's like a grab bag of stock mystery features.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, this is the least ambitious mapback I've ever seen. Lazy-ass illustrator unintentionally invents the street-view map!

Page 123~

"The doctor says I'll get my full strength back. And if he touches my wife while I'm out here, I'll make what happened to him before look like a dress rehearsal."

Why do you continue to employ the services of a doctor who is hitting on your wife? Why!?

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #7: Steve Bentley's Calypso Caper / Robert Dietrich (Dell First Edition B182)

The P. Morrison Donations #7

Title: Steve Bentley's Calypso Caper
Author: Robert Dietrich (pseud. of E. Howard Hunt)
Cover artist: Tom Miller

Best things about this cover:

• Quite a nice female figure, but unfortunately crowded and partially obscured by garish text.
• Her hair is gorgeous, from a painting perspective. I mean, you wouldn't want hair that actually looked like that (the "color" alone is frightening), but that's some nice, fine, confident brushwork.
• The more I look at that title font, the more it looks like it was created by a toddler with dull scissors. Terrible.
• Who gets this made up and spangled while also getting practically naked? Seems like a lot of work.
  I should start tagging books that use the hackneyed "—to murder!" / "—of murder!" / "—by murder!" finish.

Best things about this back cover:

• "They found the naked body of Victor Polo!" Oh sure, tease me with the near-naked body of that woman on the cover and then bait-and-switch me with the naked (and dead) body of some guy named Victor Polo. He's probably not even hot.
• "And me, Steve Bentley." HA ha. Least meaningful name drop ever.  "And me—Steve Bentley ... [cough] ... [tumbleweed] ... you know. Steve Bentley! ... come on! ... [crickets] ..."

Page 123~

The bartendress uttered a laugh like the caw of a robber crow.

First, some words were not meant to have feminine forms. Second, I wondered for a split-second what a rubber crow was supposed to sound like.

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #6: Beware the Curves / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 75598)

The P. Morrison Donations #6

Title: Beware the Curves
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner ("writing under his famous pen name A.A. Fair")
Cover artist: Well, hello there ... aren't *you* a tall drink of water ...

Best things about this cover:

• Sometime in the mid-60s, the quality of pb covers started to go downhill—art gave up its real estate to text, usually the author's NAME or a detective's NAME. Cover paintings get smaller and then eventually disappear, leaving only stock photos behind.
• This cover is designed to do one thing: make you wonder "is that her nipple showing through the lacy dress, or just a shadow...?"
• Gardner was exceedingly prolific and, in part because of that prolificness, artistically underrated. He writes a good story, and I prefer these Lam and Cool detective stories (for which he used the pseudonym "A.A. Fair") to anything else he did.

Best things about this back cover:

• What design! ... is what I'd say if I were looking at a different book. As I say, the '60s bring about the slow uglification of paperbacks until we're left with ... this.

Page 123~

She pursed her lips. "I can usually size up character," she said. "And if I can't, well, if anyone gives me a double cross, Donald, I'm ruthless, absolutely, utterly ruthless."

"Most women are," I told her, "but few of them admit it."

"Dames," he added with a shrug. "Whaddyagonnado? ... Seriously, what do I do? They keep walking away from me every time I try to talk to them. Ruthless bitches, why won't you talk to me!?"

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #5: Case of the Duplicate Daughter / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 4504)

The P. Morrison Donations #5

Pocket Books 4504 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Case of the Duplicate Daughter
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Uncredited [Robert McGinnis]

Best things about this cover:

• "OK, who threw egg at the wall!? I'm going to sit on these scones until somebody tells me!"
• Love the feather-fringed teddy, but it would be much hotter without the ornate pantaloons, which make it look like a giant tulip is swallowing her leg.
• "Come now, darling, you're far too old to be smearing the floor and wall with marmalade and then throwing flowers everywhere."

Best things about this back cover:

• Does this "down arrow" mean something, "duplicate"-wise? It's on the front cover, and the back cover, and the title page?
• OK, so now we know his client did *not* murder Vera Martel. Also, that his client is fond of giving his daughters slightly odd names. The only other place I've seen the name "Glamis" is in Macbeth (title character is "Thane of Glamis" at beginning of the play; he's promoted to "Thane of Cawdor" in Act I).

Page 123~

Judge Boris Alvord excused the witness and regarded Perry Mason with thoughtful speculation.

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #4: The Case of the Lonely Heiress / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 6027)

The P. Morrison Donations #4

Pocket Books 6027 (4th ptg, 1960)

Title: The Case of the Lonely Heiress 
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Uncredited

Best things about this cover:

• The people from PETA have learned to spraypaint *very* legibly.
• No idea who the cover artist is here, but he/she clearly doesn't have enough confidence in his/her GGA (Great Girl Art) abilities. She looks phenomenal, and really deserves to be taking up more front cover real estate.
• Maybe ease up on the orange jewelry a little, though.
• Cigarette holder! Chic!

Best things about this back cover:

• The answer is no, but only because I'm 42 and scrupulously honest.
• In case you didn't see Raymond Burr down there ... GIANT RED ARROW TO THE FACE!
• I wish the plot of this book was that Perry Mason led a double life, trolling for lonely women on the pre-internet, killing them, and then ending up having to solve the very crimes he committed. 

Page 123~

With the glaring overhead light out, Marilyn Marlow could see Lieutenant Tragg clearly now, a tall, somewhat slender, well-knit individual whose clean-cut features were a welcome relief from the heavy faces of the officers who had been leering at her.

Marilyn Marlow then said, with a predatory coyness, "You must be Humphrey Bolgard. They said you were well-knit, but—" She ran her eyes down the length of his frame and back up again "—well, there's knit and there's knit, and boy are you knit."

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #3: So Lush, So Deadly / Brett Halliday (Dell 8055)

The P. Morrison Donations #3 — Dell 8055 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: So Lush, So Deadly
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: photo

Best things about this cover:

• Talk about your $20 photo shoots, dear lord.
• Possibly the least manly cover I own. A slap fight? Girl's got a gun aimed at your head and you're gonna swat at her like she's a fly? I'm guessing that one second after this picture was taking, the girl with the gun just shook her head, said "pathetic," and walked away.
• Interesting how the fabric around their midsections appears blurred with motion. I'm just so so so glad the yellow towel didn't move any further.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dotty De Rham! Why am I not collecting these names!?
• I'm not sure I understand where the "Carnival" metaphor is coming from.
• Arson is a cardinal sin?
• The coolest private eye swings into hot action! Oh, Mike Shayne, you're the paradoxiest!

Page 123~

She was bouncing in his arms. He took her by the shoulders and made her hold still. She was still wearing the same short nightgown.

Mall Santa: After Hours.

Merry Christmas!

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #2: Lady Ann / Donald Henderson Clarke (Avon 105)

Title: Lady Ann (1st ptg, 1946)
Author: Donald Henderson Clarke
Cover artist: Uncredited

Best things about this cover:

• Pencil Mustache is trying to change TV channels with his mind. Veronica Lake thinks maybe it's time to give it a rest.
• Hmm. A dress made of fondant. How avant-garde.
• This author sure likes to give his book's women's names.
• I *love* the little calling card stuck in the "frame" of this "painting." The "frame," however, is a hideous piece of ornate crap.

Best things about this back cover:

• Opaque paper!? That's my favorite kind of paper! Oh, boy!
• Resistant to "rough usage." So go ahead, smack your kids around with 'em. See if they don't retain their readability. And if a little blood gets on there, no matter, as they "can easily be washed clean."

Page 123~

"Aw, for Hell's sake!" Noodles Noonan exclaimed. "Shut up. You dirty, weazened little no-good leavings. Why would a fellow like me that can have any dame he wants be peeking through keyholes and roosting on roofs? You're nuts, fella. You don't know it, but you're coo-coo."

Noodles Noonan is a name to be reckoned with. And "leavings" is an amazing piece of bowdlerization. Coo-coo.

~RP

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