Paperback 981: Hangover House / Sax Rohmer (Graphic 78)

Paperback 981: Graphic 78 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Hangover House
Author: Sax Rohmer
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10
Estimated value: $12-18

Best things about this cover:

• Dang. That's one bad hangover.
• The ever-so-delicate, blood red FEAR HAND
• The line and shape and color of her gown and gloves, truly exquisite
• Her molded plastic hair, however, yeeps.
• Fantastic eyebrows. She looks a lot like ... that actress ... from "Downton Abbey" ... Dockery? Mockery? Clockery? Yes, Dockery. Michelle Dockery. Tuesday Weld meets Michelle Dockery.
• Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you don't spend tomorrow in, well, the Hangover House.

Best things about this back cover:

• Usually gay. Screw your categories.
• Storm Kennedy LOL. Storm Kennedy, Porn Detective.
• Jeez, explain the plot more, why don't you? Ugh.

Page 123~

"Titles? Yes. Mrs. Muller was playing a published song of mine, last night—after the band had gone: Summer Is Winter When You're Not Around."

I Feel Like They've Taken My Dog to the Pound...
I'm Haunted by Demons Who Don't Make a Sound...
I've Run Your Dad's Company Into the Ground...

etc.

~RP

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Paperback 962: The Case of the Smoking Chimney / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 6014)

Paperback 962: Pocket Books 6014 (3rd ptg, 1960)

Title: The Case of the Smoking Chimney
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: [Charles Binger]

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• She's got something of the saloon about her.
• Those gloves are off-the-chart hot.
• So weird how they've given the curtains that hourglass shape. Actually, the longer I stare at the whole curtain scenario, the more it starts looking like ... something else entirely.
• Text is as if written on surface of invisible floating sphere. Strange.
• Most gigantic artist signature in cover art history and Of Course it gets cut off.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, I like this. It's a great, simple, quick way of visually representing the Big Red Text.
• Sideeye!
• "The story they told was clear and obvious." No need to give you details. Your brain is doing fine providing those on its own.

Page 123~

"Well, you see it's this way," Gramps explained. "I've always been interested in crime stuff."

I feel you, Gramps.

~RP

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Paperback 959: Fools Die on Friday / A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

Paperback 959: Dell R105 (1st thus, 1961)

Title: Fools Die on Friday
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 9+/10

Best things about this cover:

• It appears that either I hit some perfectly preserved AA Fair / Erle Stanley Gardner motherlode at some point in my collecting journeys, or someone sent me box of same. These books are exceedingly common, but no less glorious, art-wise. And in this condition, mwah!
• I love McGinnis's work, though I don't always share his, uh, aesthetic. There's often an icy, angular quality to his women, and the hair, dear lord, the hair. There be dragons.
• The shoes, though. The shoes. Gotta be the shoes.
• All covers are improved by martini.

Best things about this back cover:

• Math!
• Crazy calligraphic math!
• This back cover does nothing to convey how charming the Lam/Cool mysteries are.

Page 123~

She pushed back her stenographic chair, walked over to a shelf, whipped out a map, and placed it on the counter.

OK, I don't know who she is, but I'm in love.

~RP

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Paperback 958: Top of the Heap / A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner) (Dell D309)

Paperback 958: Dell D309 (1st thus, 1959)

Title: Top of the Heap
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Well, *not* the hair. That's some full-on Cruella Deville nonsense.
• If you stare at her boobs (and why not?) it's like you're looking at a very fancy black cat waiting to pounce on the spinning ball.
• I've seen some opera gloves in my time, but those are the operaiest.

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh, there she is again.
• "Was" ... and the reason we dropped the "Was" was ...?
• Is this a poem. This feels like a poem. I mean ... it's not Roethke, but it's OK.

Page 123~

"How was the money secured for the development work?"

I swear to you that that is the most exciting line on this horribly boring page. It was that or "Something about the name appealed to the investing public." Or, "Permission was given to sell the stock at par value zzzzzzzz..." etc.

~RP

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Paperback 952: The American Gun Mystery / Ellery Queen (Avon 523)

Paperback 952: Avon 523 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The American Gun Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• So much emotion and drama in this one little tableau. It's really quite beautiful, even though I have no idea why a gorgeous blonde in an evening gown and opera gloves would be at the rodeo.
• It's lit like a religious painting. Caravaggio or Rubens or someone. She's bathed in light, praying, pleading ... I mean, this is probably some generic shlock, but the cover makes it look complex and compelling.
• Also ... sweet chaps.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is far less compelling. What is the shape of those blocks supposed to represent? I see the belt and gun and lock, but the puzzle(ish) pieces ... aren't convincing. As puzzle pieces. I'm no jigsaw aficionado, but that top piece, for instance, seems impossible.
• I don't like being invited to "solve" the puzzle, and I've never ever read a mystery with the idea that I was supposed to solve it. I realize that makes me slightly weird, as "mystery" fans / collectors go.
• "Deadly Puzzle" is still bothering me. Who associates rodeo with jigsaw puzzles? What's more, in what universe is a jigsaw puzzle scary? Ooooh, deadly puzzle! I'm shaking.

Page 123~

He gulped down two raw eggs, a steaming pannikin of coffee, an excited regurgitation of the preceding evening's events issuing from Djuna's chattering mouth, and then dashed downtown to Times Square.

PANNIKIN SKYWALKER is my new user name.

~RP

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Paperback 949: Play the Sin Field / Drew Deskins (Spartan Line SL134)

Paperback 949: Spartan Line SL134 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Play the Sin Field
Author: Drew Deskins
Cover artist: presumably

Estimated value: No idea. Somehow, I have TWO copies of this, and yet there are NO copies at abebooks. :(
Condition: 8/10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap, I only *just* realized that this is supposed to be a pun on the phrase, "play the infield." Before, I thought a. wow, they just threw the word SIN in to a perfectly good phrase and ruined it, how stupid, and b. wow, SIN is a really truly terrible pun for "out."
• I love this woman. We should all be this confident. (i.e. confident enough to wear pasties that clash with our evening gloves).
• Wanton nymphos are the best kind of nymphos. Them prim nymphos ain't no fun at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the Insane Phrase Bookend blurb. I should create a tag for these things. They are a truly great part of American literary history. I assure you Hemingway could never have come up with "SIN GUESTS"; not in his whole, adulturous life.
• P.S. "orgiastically"

Page 123~

"I want you to lay me right here and now," she said softly and he fell on her, his malehood jutting and pulsating, as he inched it within her eager body.

You'd think you'd be laughing too hard to properly masturbate to this stuff.

~RP

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Paperback 726: New Orleans Lady / Viña Delmar (Avon 209)

Paperback 726: Avon 209 (PBO, 1949)

Title: New Orleans Lady
Author: Viña Delmar
Cover artist: [Bernie] Barton

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The cover of Latex Fetish Monthly, June 1949
• I love a title written in Whorehouse font.
• Her breasts are like some kind of fancy little cupcake.
• Cover's pretty boring, but if you stare at it long enough, it gets a little creepy. Dude looks like something Charles Burns would draw.

And now the back cover…

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare's like "Hey … 'sup?"
• If you sing "Eulalie" to the tune of "Layla," it kind of works.

Page 123~

She passed her hand tiredly over her forehead. "Please, Lorenz, go away. I must rest. One of my headaches—"

"Go away indeed! I'll cure your headache." He threw a glance toward Septembre. "I have news."

"I'll cure your headache." HA ha. Oh, Lorenz, you're the date-rapiest!

P.S. Septembre

~RP

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Paperback 667: The Handle / Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) (Pocket Books 50220)

Paperback 667: Pocket Books 50220 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Handle
Author: Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: Not For Sale [part of my "Parker PBO" collection]


Best things about this cover:

• The best thing about any Stark cover is the fact that "Stark" is on the cover.
• What a weird picture. It's like these people are standing on the deck of a listing boat, and there is a slight anomaly or disturbance off the port bough.
• Never been a big fan of Harry Bennett's work—bit too sloppy and unsexy for me. But James Garner's lookin' pretty good here, and she has a certain elegant something, and Flat Top Thompson over there has a nifty weaselyness about him. It's a motley assortment of folk, but interestingly rendered.
• I picked up this book and one other Stark PBO during my recent west coast excursion (the reason for this blog's two-week hiatus). I paid too much, but my steely collector's resolve melts in the presence of Stark. Stark is my kryptonite. I got these at Powell's Books in Portland, which is also my kryptonite. Just a magnificent bookstore. Kind of overwhelming, actually. If I were to leave there without a book, it would feel like a kind of failure. I've decided I need to own first editions of all the Parker novels. I currently own ... four, I think. Lots of work left to do (which is the whole Fun of collecting). 

Best things about this back cover:

• Not much here. 
• An odd and not-that-provocative raised quote. 
• I have not yet read this one. I am currently reading my way through the whole set of Parkers, in order. Finished Man with the Getaway Face on vacation; now part-way into The Outfit. Westlake is one of those writers who never lets me down. Clean, direct, smart, funny prose and dialogue. Effortless. I'm so glad he was so prolific, because it means I still have years of Westlakian good times ahead of me.

Page 123~

He had brought the bourbon bottle along and used it sparingly to rinse out his mouth when it became too dry, but he soon saw he wouldn't be able to survive too long without water. 

This makes me sad for the bourbon.

~RP

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Paperback 610: Morocco Jones in The Case of the Golden Angel / Jack Baynes (Crest 325)

Paperback 610: Crest Books 325 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Morocco Jones in The Case of the Golden Angel
Author: Jack Baynes
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Hey look, it's Robert Mitchum's slow, pin-headed cousin ... Morocco.
• What are you, a pirate? Button your blouse, Morocco.
• LOVE her pose / expression. It's like she's upset that no one's paying attention to her: "Oh, my, there's a rip in the back of my dress, boys. Look. Boys? Boys!!!"
• The boys are developing their patented angry secret handshake.
• And Morocco floated like a besotted wine-colored god in the heavens ... 

Best things about this back cover:

• This back cover was made with some early, horrid version of Photoshop. "Crop! Ok, now ... blue-ify!"
• Oh, *that* Kansas City.
• Of course nobody told Morocco that the "S.O.S." stood for "Sad Old Spy." It would've hurt his feelings.

Page 123~

Dave tossed Morocco a taut grin. "What honest labor union leader could afford a perch like this one?"

You have to make your grin taut before you toss it, otherwise it just sort of dies in mid-air.

~RP

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Paperback 593: A Death at Sea and The Time of Terror / Lionel White (Ace Double F-155)

Paperback 593: Ace Double F-155 (1st / 1st, 1961)

Title: A Death at Sea / The Time of Terror
Author: Lionel White
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited (illeg. sig.)

Yours for: $15

Best things about this cover:

• Elena bitterly regrets her decision to put two slugs in Steve and dump his body off the pier. That, or she has a toothache.
• Why did all the boyfriends she killed have to return as demonic sea ghosts? It all seemed terribly unfair.
• Opera gloves! Hot. 
• If you squint and tilt your head a little, you can sort of see what Steve's head would look like on her body. Also, if you imagine Steve away, you can imagine Elena has one terrific scar just under her left collarbone.

Best things about this other cover:

• "What the!?!? Oh, it's just a demonic merry-go-round horse. I gotta get my nerves under control."
• I am distracted and mildly irritated by the definite article in the title.
• Author's signature visible but not legible, just under demon horse hoof. Always frustrating to have a signature but not a clear attribution.
• Not a fan of this hat style, whatever you call it. Brim's too small, and it's sitting too high up on his head, esp. in the back. I dig the gloves, though. Very professional.

Page 123~ (of The Time of Terror)

"It begins with Marko," Terry said. "Rudolph Marko—he was the key to the whole thing. I'll start with him. But first I'll have a drink of that rum. I'm forming a taste for it."

Priorities. Nice.

~RP

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Paperback 511: Sinful Wife / Ray Damon (Chariot Books 172)

Paperback 510: Chariot Books 172 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Sinful Wife
Author: Ray Damon
Cover artist: Uncredited (back cover = photo cover)

Yours for: Not For Sale (donation from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• "Look, Steve, I like you, but briskly rubbing my nipple with the butt of your gun is just not doing it for me."
• I wish she were standing up so I could see her underwear better (without all the messed up perspective). It's kind of cute.
• Is she a doctor? It looks like she just flopped back on the bed and threw open her lab coat in a fit of passion. Or dyspepsia. Her facial expression is kind of enigmatic.

Best things about this back cover:

• Here's Stella showing off the lamp that earned her a 2nd place ribbon in the "Most Ridiculous Novelty Lamp" competition at the county fair. She also received an Honorable Mention for "Biggest Damn Lampshade Anyone's Ever Seen."
• I'm sure she's very sexy under that Grandma's-MuuMuu of a nightgown.
• Is there anything that lamp can't do. I'm pretty sure it tells time, and possibly provides shelter for a small family. 
• And the award for "Most Uses of the Verb 'Come' on the Back Cover of a Paperback" goes to ...

Page 123~

The gear shift was a big lever jutting up beside me with a button on top.

"I'll thank you not to talk about my penis that way," exclaimed Steve.

~RP

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Paperback 489: Madame / Ben Berkey (Kozy Books 161)

Paperback 489: Kozy Books K161 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Madame
Author: Ben Berkey
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• The German soliders were mesmerized by her astonishing shadow puppetry skills. "Oooh, that's a swan. Lovely."
• Wow, those are some perfectly spherical, gravity-defying tits. And they're sprouting! Chia-Tits!
• I love it when a stripper manages to coordinate her shoes and her pasties.
• I like the blond G.I. Josef in the foreground. You know he's important because he's the only one sitting in a recliner.
• I love the decor. They've painted the walls a lovely shade of Despair.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, this flaccid prose. Make it stop!
• Wait, how did "passion" come before "desire?"— "I'm not really turned on yet, but if I just keep dry-humping you, I'm sure it'll come along."
• Too much "seeming!"
  If you want to turn a guy on, try literally placing your lips inside his ear. Guaranteed not to creep him out and make him recoil in primal horror.
• What did she say!?!?! Vickie!!!!! Speak up! Vickiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee! (you see how invested I am...)

Page 123~

At the barrier, Lettie Muller and Frank Killdare indulged in small talk, with the Lieutenant gone to talk to the guard, Killdare felt a trifle shy in her presence [1]. Certain incidents [2] that had occurred between them in the past [3] now came to the surface [4] with crystal clearness [5]. He had an uncomfortable feeling [6] that the girl also felt that way. He was soon to find that he had guessed right [7].

• [1] Jeez, run-on much?
• [2] I kill my students for this kind of vagueness, especially when said "incidents" are Never, Ever named, come on!
• [3] Yes, that's when most events tend to have occurred.
• [4] Of ...?
• [5] In America, we say "clarity," but go on ...
• [6] Not unlike what one feels reading this tone-deaf prose.
• [7] "I often make girls feel uncomfortable, so the odds were in my favor, really," he said at the post-game press conference.

~RP

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Paperback 430: Free Woman / Katharine Brush (Dell 10c 18)

Paperback 430: Dell 10c 18 (1st ptg., 1951)

Title: Free Woman
Author: Katharine Brush
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• This cover never fails to make me laugh—it's such a simple, visually succinct statement of the evils of the Career Girl. "Why does mommy hate us, daddy?" "Because she's a selfish harpy, Timmy. All women are. You'll learn."
• Or maybe she's just trying on a new suit at the department suit. "How do I look, dear?" "Well Timmy hates it, right Timmy?" "Something's wrong with my right foot, daddy."
• I like her gloves. A lot. I also like how she's verrrry subtly giving those two the middle finger.
• She is literally looking down her nose at them. "You two—bring the car around."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Jon is not your son. He sprang forth fully formed from my head. Now, bring the car around!"
• "At the height of her success, disaster struck, and she was ruined." Spoiler alert!
• "Like any unruly horse, she was broken by a man..."

Page 23~

She had finished school in June, and in September the first fruits awaited her—she was to be Director of Athletics, spelled that way in capitals, at a fashionable school for girls in Pennsylvania.

Oooh, capital letters. That *is* fashionable.

~RP

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Paperback 426: Sex and the Armed Services / L.T. Woodward, M.D. (Monarch MB507)

Paperback 426: Monarch MB507 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Sex and the Armed Services
Author: L.T. Woodward, M.D. [pseud. of Robert Silverberg]
Cover artist: Uncredited [Robert Maguire]

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Navy women sleep with sophisticated diplomats, where Army men sleep with French whores.
• I have to say that I am disappointed with the balance here between "Sex" and "the Armed Services." You mean I have to *imagine* the sex? Total ripoff.
• This will sound weird, but the more I look at our two protagonists, the more I like them. They have a distinctly cool look that makes me want to know more about them. I want them to be rivals, scheming for ... something. They would have chemistry, but they would not be a couple. They might have to team up, perhaps using the French whore to pull a scam on the sophisticated diplomat. I'm not sure where the sex comes in, exactly.
• I LOVE these fake sciencey books that the sex publishers put out in the '60s (complete with caduceus / "Human Behavior" logo, Ha ha: "4 out of 5 scienticians agree, our books contain plausible human behavior"). Part of the whole post-Kinsey "Your Right To Know" "studies" of "real" sex lives, allowing adults to unembarrassingly indulge their penchants for voyeurism. I'm pretty sure the sex anecdotes contained therein are entirely fictional.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Code Red, Code Red, Emergency ... I'm gonna have to go lesbian!" Once you go lesbian, you never go back. Or you do, whatever.
• What the hell does "mingle promiscuously" look like? Is that when you grope boobs at a cocktail party? "Can I freshen your drink? How 'bout stick my tongue down your throat? No? OK..."
• LOVE the last sentence, which posits that the military encourages "abnormal" behavior.

Page 123~

The old nurses handled me impersonally, like I was something made of wood, but the very young ones would blush and glance away when their attentions aroused me.

Heh heh. "Wood."

~RP

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Paperback 405: This Way for Hell / Spike Morelli (Leisure Library 7)

Paperback 405: Leisure Library 7 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: This Way for Hell
Author: Spike Morelli
Cover artist: Reginald Heade

Yours for: $30

Best things about this cover:

• That woman died from a severe case of Volcano Nipple, and the jogging mermaid hitwoman couldn't care less.
• "If I can't be Miss Sea Foam 1952, no one can! Taxi!"
• "This way for hell, that way for linens, sundries, and men's wear."
• Love her right earring, which is trying desperately to swim away from her face (I assume that's a fish, given the nautical hue of her gown and (prodigious) gloves).

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow. Kids, see that second sentence? Don't write like that. Just make "completely merciless" into an adjectival phrase and put it before "syndicate."
• "Even Venus de Milo"??? That armless statue? That's your paragon of shamelessness? Never thought of her as a slutty exhibitionist.
• Seriously, this was written by an eighth-grader. You will go to a limit. You won't go beyond it. Come on!
• Uh, it's This Way FOR Hell, not TO Hell. Stupid eighth-grader.
  

Page 123~

"You could still go for me if you wanted to let yourself go. You know you could."
"You're all mixed up inside, Julie. There could never be any room in my life for a dame like you."
"You make it hard, Shaun. I don't know what to do."
"When dames get tough they usually do silly things. Things they live to regret afterwards."

This dame doesn't "live to regret" her behavior so much as (on the very next page) fling herself through a window to her splattery death in the alley below. Sorry. I should have said "SPOILER ALERT!"

Also, pretty sure the eighth-grader who wrote the cover copy wrote the whole damn book as well. The entire dialogue between dick and dame is hilarious, wooden, C-grade patter.

~RP

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Paperback 294: Lady in Peril / Ben Ames Williams (Popular Library 164)

Paperback 294: Popular Library 164 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Lady in Peril
Author: Ben Ames Williams
Cover artist: Rudolph Belarski

Yours for: $23

It's "LADY IN PERIL" week at "Pop Sensation" — three early Popular Library covers all featuring ... yes, you guessed it, LADIES IN PERIL. First up, "LADY IN PERIL" —


Best things about this cover:

• "I'll be back in five minutes, I swear!"
• You have to be superhot to pull off wearing that much of that color. This lady (in peril) succeeds. Dress alone = OK, but dress + long gloves = wow.
• This cover rules and Rudolph Belarski was a pulp art genius. Such great lurid action. Just the idea of a lady dressed like this trying to escape out of what appears to be at least a second-story window — that's enough to convince me that peril is for real.
• Hand-on-wrist action right in the dead center of the cover, combined with the vividness of her splayed, aqua hand, really creates a sense of immediacy here.
• Her hair is fancy, her horrified expression believable, her rack exquisite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Inspector Tope, HA ha. That character writes itself. Not enough fall-down-drunk detectives in the crime fiction canon for my tastes.
• The sentence that begins "During..." is so convoluted that it makes me want to shoot myself, others.

Page 123~

And it was only when her back was turned that he realized she wore over her nightgown a negligee of metal cloth, bright as silver. This was Lola Cyr!

When are metal negligees going to make their comeback? I like a lady who's not afraid to wear chain mail to bed.

~RP

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Paperback 262: Too Hot to Hold / Day Keene (Gold Medal 931)

Paperback 262: Gold Medal 931 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Too Hot to Hold
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited [Robert McGinnis]

Yours for: SOLD (7/23/09)


Best things about this cover:

• I Love This Cover. It's unusual and enigmatic and just oozes sophistication and coolness and mystery. I *want to know* what she is doing, where she is going, who's in the cab with her, all of it.
• Great Girl Art that isn't hyper-sexed. Great gams, great gloves, and Great Hair.
• "Death" is kind of anticlimactic after "torture." Not really shocking. Kind of the next logical step. Now "... leading men to soup ... and death!" That would be shocking.
• Sadly, this title has put the theme to Ghostbusters II in my head: "Too hot to handle / Too cold to hold / They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control!" — Oh, Bobby Brown, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Best things about this back cover:

• If you like green/brown, or off-center typography, this is the cover for you.

Page 123~

Linda Lou stopped pretending and ran her hands over her flat body. She could be carrying the first of them now. The thought made her blush. After the way she'd acted, if it was possible for a woman to conceive more than once in a night, she probably had a whole family inside her.

You'll be relieved (maybe) to know that this passage is not directly related to the scene of abuse and torture (possible rape?) on the book's back cover. Still, though ... I'm kind of creeped out. "A whole family?" OB/Gyn: "Hey, there's a mom and dad, three kids and a dog in here. How'd that happen?"

~RP

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