Paperback 990: Sugar Shannon / Adam Knight (Belmont Books 217)

Paperback 990: Belmont 217 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Sugar Shannon
Author: Adam Knight
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 9/10
Estimated value: $20

Best things about this cover:

• I love this cover. Mostly I love that it's so ****ing purple, and then that the title is yellow and oddly placed. I also love her big, calmly intense eyes, and the way she cradles that gun lovingly between her breasts. Either this is a next-level sexy role-playing scenario, or someone is gonna get very murdered.
• I know when I go to rendezvous (-vouses?), my preferred method of travel is drifting.
• Series!? Here's the other Adam Knight book in the Pop Sensation archives—throwback! (2007).

Best things about this back cover:

• Scorching yellow!
• Tiny Shannon. That is a weird use of the front cover image.
• Wow, this passage and synopsis tell us ... nothing. It's boiler-plate, bot-written cover copy.

Page 123~

Serena's flat was a paradox. It screamed mediocrity, it stank of the buckeye in art and upholstery.

Don't know what it means, don't care what it means—but "it stank of the buckeye" is my new go-to judgment phrase.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 987: New York: Confidential / Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer (Dell 1534)

Paperback 987: Dell 1534 (2nd ptg, 1951)

Title: New York: Confidential
Author: Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Guys! Dolls! Together!
• Robert Stanley's people are always ridiculously rich and creamy.
• Seriously, the art is gorgeous. That dark aquamarine NYC night sky somehow works perfectly.

Best things about this back cover:

• Map! Back! Mapback!
• It's a pretty dang dull map, from a design point of view, but the "Key" on p. 240 is amazing. All those little numbers on the map represent "Hotels," "Night Clubs & Restaurants," "Theaters," and "Shopping":

Also, there are appendices of cool info like "Headwaiters' Names" (!?) and a "Glossary of Harlemisms":



Page 123~

Do not use cheap perfume when night-clubbing (or at any time).

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 860: Case of the Petticoat Murder / Jonathan Craig (Gold Medal 784)

Paperback 860: Gold Medal 784 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Case of the Petticoat Murder
Author: Jonathan Craig
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $20


Best things about this cover:

• The second movement of "Eroica" *is* pretty groovy…
• That hand is halfway between Fear Hand and "You Want Some of This?" Hand.
• I really, really like that bare suggestion of a bed frame. It's a pair of lips! It's a gun sight! The whole spirit of Sexy/Danger conveyed in a few graceful black arcs.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mustard. I think that's what I'm looking at.
• I wish all the non-green words would just drop away. Now that's what I call "poetry."
• You rarely see detectives so proud of their necrophilic tendencies.

Page 123~

"Because, for one thing, I don't care for alligator."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 762: Case of the Cold Coquette / Jonathan Craig (Gold Medal 645)

Paperback 762: Gold Medal 645 (PBO, 1957)

Title: Case of the Cold Coquette
Author: Jonathan Craig
Cover artist: George Mayers

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Cold? Maybe if she put her shirt back on …
• Oh, *that* kind of iceberg. The ones that are beautiful and are thawed by money. I was thinking of the ones that are made of ice and float in the ocean and are thawed by the rays of the sun. But I get it now. Good analogy.
• If you're looking for your right shoe, lady, it's under the bench … there … toward your left … no, not in the corner—down … straight down … are you even trying? 
• Seriously, what is she doing? Some kind of weird half-naked bench yoga?

Best things about this back cover:

• "I'm a cop." Original!
• Champagne tastes … but caviar guts-on-the-track!
• We get it. Cold, thaw, etc. Give the metaphor a rest; I think it's tired.
• I always say, the best leads are succulent leads. Like aloe. A great lead, aloe.

Page 123~

"The mark is so hotted up he can't think straight."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]