Paperback 210: Search for a Dead Nympho / Paul W. Fairman (Lancer 73-587)

Paperback 210: Lancer 73-587 (PBO, 1967)
Title: Search for a Dead Nympho
Author: Paul W. Fairman
Cover artist: Photographer with a snazzy pink filter

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Because live nymphos are too much trouble.
• Is he protecting her or holding her hostage? In my admittedly limited experience, women don't like to have guns held so close to their faces.
• It's like he's trying to get a little mustard off her face with his gun, but refuses to do it the "easy" way by looking right at her and instead chooses to use a mirror to guide his hand. At least, that is how I imagine a guy named "Vince Garth" would roll.
• Vince Garth! Who names these guys? You know what Vince Garth needs? A last name.

Best things about this back cover:

• Teardrop! HA ha.
• "Lorry!?" "We named her after the place she was conceived. Pardon me while I take the lift to my flat. Cheerio!"
• You'll be very sorry you ever met Lorry.
• "Cover posed by professional models" - photo covers that aren't stills from movies or TV shows make me sad.

Page 123~

"But why not the red-headed beatnik? He took Lorry to that call house. Stass may be a lot of things, but he's not a pimp."

You know, he's right. Why NOT the red-headed beatnik?

~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 176: The Irish Beauty Contract / Philip Atlee (Gold Medal D1976)

Paperback 176: Gold Medal D1976 (PBO?, 1966)

Title: The Irish Beauty Contract
Author: Philip Atlee
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Well, Joe Gall, obviously. Look at his tough-guy mug up there in the corner. "I Approve This Counterespionage Adventure"
• I was hoping and praying that the picture of Joe Gall in the corner meant that there was some TV show or something that featured his character ... but no. Not that I can see. Just some model ... ? Which is weird. I want to say "unprecedented." It's like they want you to think he's some kind of TV star, or that the book might be a TV tie-in. I guess that was a selling point in the 60s.
• The tagline for this non-existent TV show would be someone saying: "You've got some gall!" and then Joe would turn and smile knowingly into the camera. Magic!
• I'm guessing the dead girl is the "Irish Beauty." I say this because of her lush, cascading red hair. Something tells me those ruins are not in Ireland. Meanwhile, our hero is dressed oddly like Joan Crawford. Cross her with Norma Desmond descending the staircase at the end of "Sunset Boulevard." Now cross that with Frankenstein's monster. That's our hero.
• Love the blurb from Chandler. Legitimacy! The quote kind of trails off there. There's a longer one inside that continues: "... the hard economy of style, the characterizations ..." but that one trails off too. I'll be kind and assume that Chandler doesn't introduce a "but" in the next phrase.

Best things about this back cover:

• Joe Gall montage! See the many sides of Joe Gall! Wry look, followed by slightly less wry look, followed by the same look at a slightly different angle, followed by the cool pleasures of Chesterfield, followed by exhale. Joe Gall!
• "The Nullifier," HA ha. Best name ever. It's very non-terrifying.
• Joe is not afraid of "hairy ones." I've heard of guys like that. I think they are called "bears." Or "cubs," I forget.

Page 123~

Screw that, here's page 1, line 1:

"You're most depressing," the Irish Beauty said. She was nude except for a solar topi and a riding crop.

Topi (n.): A pith helmet worn for protection against sun and heat.

At least I assume he means the pith helmet. The other "topi" is an antelope.

~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

Paperback 95: Come Be My O.R.G.Y. / Ted Mark (Berkley S1564)

Paperback 95: Berkley Medallion S1564 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Come Be My O.R.G.Y.
Author: Ted Mark
Cover artist: Sidney Booblover (I mean, "uncredited")

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• Possibly the silliest title name in my entire collection.
• Q: How can a cover featuring so much breast flesh be so ugly? (A: urine-hued aura)
• I like to imagine that all these people on the cover are actually the same person, and we are seeing all of his/her different incarnations. Together, the four of them could all be each other's O.R.G.Y.
• If you have not heard of "The Man from O.R.G.Y." before, then I defy you to figure out what it stands for. (I'll reveal the answer in the near future) [A: Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth]
  
• Smirky McDickerson there in the front is inspiring me to create a new Post Label: Douchebag Detectives. I know of at least one other candidate ... with thousands of books awaiting write-ups, I am confident there are more.
  
• "Steve Victor! ... anyone? No?"
• I can only hope that he is putting that shirt on.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• "Seriously, come be my O.R.G.Y."
• This guy clearly smells of gin, cigarettes, and self-loathing.
• "That delectable Tibetan" - Is her name really some mock-Asian version of "teeny bopper!?!?" Is it wrong that I hope "Steve" dies at the end (or, even better, the beginning) of this book?

PAGE 123 - is not nearly as good as PAGE 81~

She scrambled over my body until we were juxtaposed and her long blonde hair trailed over my thighs. That old Roman dinner gong had rung [ed.: ...?]. The feast of her nether chamber was spread before me and I raised up to sample its feverish honey. She responded by engulfing my edible root and I became dizzy with the delights provided by her womb at the top.

After reading that, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat a root again. The jury's still out on honey ...

~RP

Paperback 43: Priory 1127

Paperback 43: Priory 1127 (undated)

Title: The Squeeze
Author: Gil Brewer
Cover artist: photo cover

"Let's see ... I feel as if we're one prop short of making this the most cliché hard-boiled cover photo ever. What are we missing? "Sexy" blonde? Check. Cigarette? Check. Alcohol? Check. I'm an aging "tough" guy, so ... Check. Hmmm. What could it be? Oh, right, now I remember. I've got it right here in my pocket..."

Best things about this cover:

• In one of what must have been numerous cost-cutting moves, Priory apparently opted to use still photos from the first few minutes of 70s porn flicks for their covers
• Is she supposed to be hot? She looks disheveled and drug-addled. That wig! (at least I hope that's a wig)
• If a paperback has ever featured a less sexy couple than this, I haven't seen it

Priory books were "Produced in Israel" (!?) for a largely Commonwealth market (back cover features prices for NZ, AUS, UK, S.Afr., Canada, as well as U.S.). They are reprints of Ace Books (of which I have already featured many in my collection) and they appear to have been produced primarily in the early 70's. This book is terribly trashy and dirty and horrible. It reeks of cheap motel - the sticker only adds to the tacky ambiance. I tried to remove it, but that would have resulted in a horrible sticker pull, so I opted to leave it. Gil Brewer is actually a very accomplished crime fiction writer, and it would horribly unfair to judge this book by its cover. And yet I can't help myself.

RP