Paperback 644: The Talking Clock / Frank Gruber (Penguin 545)

Paperback 644: Penguin 545 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Talking Clock
Author: Frank Gruber
Cover artist: H. Lawrence Hoffman

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• Very early Penguin. More woodcut than painting. Not terribly exciting, but interesting as a historical curiosity. 
• That's a 'stache variety you rarely see anymore. I'm gonna call it the "Germanic shopkeep."
• This book is really well made. Spine lean and reading crease, but tight as hell, with perfectly even (and white pages). I think production quality might've dipped in future years.
• According to interior inscription, this book was once owned by Laura Burns of 14642 Bringard Drive, Somewhere, U.S.A.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Blurb, schmurb—buy some more of our damned books!"

Page 123~

"Hello, Madigan," he said. "I see the punk's talked to you."
Punk?" exclaimed Johnny. "Why the Lieutenant and I are practically pals. I help him solve his case. The tough ones."
Lieutenant Madigan grunted. "You know what happened in Hillcrest? And you, Mrs. Quisenberry?"
Bonita Quisenberry's face was like old ivory, yellow and hard.

I don't know what's happening here, but I do know this book has a woman named Bonita Quisenberry in it, which is more than enough for me. If I ever met a woman named Bonita Quisenberry, I would immediately ask her to run away with me. Or bake me a pie.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 518: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 241)

Paperback 518: Pocket Books 241 (1st ptg, 1943)

Title: Red Harvest
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: H. Lawrence Hoffman

Yours for: $17

Best things about this cover:

• A classic hard-boiled novel. This one's been well read, but is still solid. Pleasantly aged. Late-night, nearly-empty bus station quality.
• That's a pretty awful hand. And the smoke looks like a poop parsnip. And the blood is orange. I still like it.
• Haven't read this in a Long while. Might be time.

Best things about this back cover:

• "A BLOODY HUMORESQUE" = gold! Like you'd Ever see a word like "humoresque" on a piece of popular fiction now. 
• Ellipsis ... much?
• "Choice underworld vernacular" pretty much says it all about what makes the best hard-boiled writing so delectable.
• "A harvest of ill-grown crimson weeds!"
• Wait, those are quotes??? Had they not yet figured out the standard for blurb presentation yet in 1943? "What if we just throw all these sentences down in a jumble, separate them with ellipses, then just list the names of the quotation authors in a heap at the end. Readers will love that."

Page 123~

"Now hop to it," I said. "And don't kid yourself that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself."

Hardboiled philosophy has rarely been so clearly, succinctly, perfectly expressed.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 191: The Listening House (Popular Library 69)

Paperback 191: Popular Library 69 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: The Listening House
Author: Mabel Seeley
Cover artist: [H. Lawrence Hoffman]

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• Yeah, if the house I was walking past suddenly grew a gigantic ear, I'd run like hell too.
• Is the runner holding a boomerang? Is he texting someone? Did the ice cream fall out of his cone? His forward hand looks very wrong.
• While I love the more realistic, lurid, 50s-60s covers the most, I have a strange affection for these more abstract early covers. Hoffman did some great work in the 40s. I'm pretty sure I have more from him coming up in my collection.

Best things about this back cover:

• This description sounds more Gothic than Mystery. A creaky old house ... on a cliff?
• I love the can-do, plucky optimism of the early paperbacks. They all had adorable slogans back then - "Mysteries of Proven Merit" Not sure what's going on with the quotation marks. When you say it about yourself, it's not really a quote.

Page 123~

"Mrs Dacres, did you ever spend any thought at all on why society makes such a hue and cry about murder? After all, by and large, I've found out that most of the people who get murdered leave the world better off for their absence."

Now that's a quote that makes me want to keep reading. For once.

~RP