Paperback 717: Death and Letters / Elizabeth Daly (Berkley Medallion F779)

Paperback 717: Berkley Medallion F779 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Death and Letters
Author: Elizabeth Daly
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: [not for sale] [weeeeirdly high prices ($40, $99.99) on this one at abebooks; no idea what that's about]


Best things about this cover:

• Yes. That expression. That is exactly the expression I make when confronted with a terrible crossword puzzle. SIDEGLANCE!
• How much product is in that hair? You '60s ladies were Dedicated.
• Is that a crocheted top? Or a bib? So weird. And yet I love her.
• Gamadge Does Damage!™

Best things about this back cover:

• Is one puzzle talking to another ... or ... ?
• "Jailors" looks all kinds of wrong. Like "jailer" and "gaoler" had an ugly baby.
• I bought "The Book of the Lion" at the same book sale where I picked up this book. As with nearly all the books I bought that day, this one is in cut-your-fingers perfect condition. Unread. New. Ridiculous.

Page 123~

"I'm terribly worried about your wanting to go and eat peanuts in the park."

~RP

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Paperback 642: Experiment Perilous / Margaret Carpenter (Pocket Books 278)

Paperback 642: Pocket Books 278 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: Experiment Perilous
Author: Margaret Carpenter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "No. No, I don't approve of these young people at all. Decidedly not."
• Seriously, this is one of the greatest photobombs of all time.
• Experiment Perilous. Old Man Angry. Noun Adjective! Grrrr.

Best things about this back cover:

• 4 cents!? It used to be 3!? I blame Obama.
• Be sure to send the book to a boy, because of course girls can't read so what're they gonna do with it, origami?
• Publishers still working out the kinks in their blurb presentation strategy. "How 'bout one big undifferentiated mass of quotes?" "Sounds good. Run with it!"

Page 123~

She cried as if her heart would break this afternoon, and confessed to me the most extraordinary thing: she is being followed by a man she has never seen before. This has been going on for three months, she said. Nick pooh-poohs the whole thing, and says every pretty girl learns how to manage that sort of thing in her teens. 

"I've stalked pretty girls my whole life," Nick added, "so believe me, I know."

~RP

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Paperback 554: The Secret Adversary / Agatha Christie (Avon 100)

Paperback 554: Avon 100 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: The Secret Adversary
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Bower (I don't know how I know this, or who this is—I'm just reading the ID tag I made years ago)

Yours for: SOLD! (9/3/12)
Best things about this cover:

• Mmm, the fine art gilded frame look is Classy.
• The quote is kind of enigmatic, esp. if you stop before the ellipsis. But even after the ellipsis, it sounds like they're saying "if you absolutely must read a crappy, preposterous novel, read this one."
• That man's fall bears no plausible relation to the blow he appears to have just taken. Maybe the guy in the hat just snatched his cane. Or maybe that thing on his face is a bat which has just flown into his nose.

Best things about this back cover:

• We've seen this before. This is what back covers looked like when paperback publishers felt they still had to justify the whole format to their readership.

Page 123~

Tuppence caught herself nervously looking over her shoulder. The big wardrobe loomed up in a sinister fashion before her eyes. Plenty of room for a man to hide in that ...

Silly Tuppence. Relax. Everyone knows wardrobes lead only to Narnia. Go see Mr. Tumnus! Then you'll be Tuppence & Tumnus (sitcom-ready relationship).

~RP

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Paperback 531: The Better To Eat You and Mischief / Charlotte Armstrong (Ace Double D-521)

Paperback 531: Ace Double D-521 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: The Better To Eat You / Mischief
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• Allow me to pre-apologize for the nightmares you'll be having later.
• Don't look at me, lady, because I have *no* fucking idea either.
• This is the painting of a man about to take his own life. Or a man who is trying to get fired.
• You know what? I don't think she's scared. I think she's kind of turned on. This painting has layers. Many creepy layers.
• "Despair" (1963) — Oil and blood and scabs and tears on canvas

Best things about this cover:

• This woman is *really* enjoying her bondage fantasy.
• "807"is the pictorial equivalent of clownface, i.e. What The Hell?
• Look out, Grace Kelly! Raymond Burr can see you!

Page 123~ (of The Better To Eat You)

"You didn't try to make him listen when I wanted you to go to the Village . . ." Malvina smouldered.

"Malvina smouldered" is the new "Jesus wept."

~RP

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Paperback 411: Modesty Blaise / Peter O'Donnell (Fawcett/Crest R899)

Paperback 411: Fawcett/Crest R899 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: Modesty Blaise
Author: Peter O'Donnell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• I challenge the spy-worthiness of those boots. Everything else is sleek and pragmatic (even the pile of hair, which could be hiding, I don't know, throwing stars or a bottle opener or something), but those heels wouldn't last 10 seconds in Abbottabad.
• She has the look of a McGinnis girl, but there's something ... not quite right. A lifelessness. I mean, I usually think McGinnis girls look a little dead-eyed, but they have a certain something that pops. This woman doesn't have it.
• This is a movie tie-in paperback. Movie is apparently a kind of spoof of spy movies. The "Modesty Blaise" franchise is weird. Starts in comics (as a female alternative to 007), and blows up from there.
• As for the background—looks like something borrowed from a kindergarten classroom. What the hell?

Best things about this back cover:

• Her expression in that second drawing. Is she flipping a man and singing "My Prerogative" at the same time? Impressive.
• Wow, this cover copy is leaden. Not campy, not funny, not outlandish—just predictable and stupid.
• "Dirk Bogarde" will now be added to my long list of potential aliases.

Page 123~

"Yet she's all woman," Hagan said, and felt his loins throb with sudden memory of her.

I don't think that's quite how loins work. Even a 16-yr-old isn't going to go from zero to "throb" at the speed of thought.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 55

Titles: Catch-as-Catch-Can / Then Came Two Women
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $9

• Had mainstream cover artists / designers just given up by the mid-60s. I'm seeing a lot of slop lately. What is the concept here? Girl in pink dress running — OK. But then, what, a rough pencil sketch of her shins from a different angle, blown up as a background + random EMT running to check her gigantic left ankle + wee man tickling her right heel??? Maybe the lady in the pink looks so nauseous and is running so fast because she's trying desperately to escape from this cover concept. "Oh god, it's terrible, boo hoo, save me!"
• When Drexel Drake talks, people ... honestly, I don't know what people do. Drexel Drake is a porn name.

• Responsible housewife by day, trashy Cougar by night...
• Love the attire on the women. Also love little miss Bad Seed in her best buggy-riding attire.
• "God, I hate my two moms..."
• That is some supernatural shit that Bad Seed's hair is doing at the tips.

Page 123~ (from Catch-as-Catch-Can)

But she could see. That his hand and arms moved nervously and secretly to thrust the gun into the thick shrub beside which he was standing. He turned his body and wavered like a shadow.

Who let her break that first sentence in two like that?! Jebus! Also, I'm trying to imagine what that last sentence is supposed to look like. And failing.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 204: The Girl Who Had to Die + The Blank Wall / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace G-512)

Paperback 204: Ace G-512 (1st ptg / 1st ptg)

Title: The Girl Who Had to Die / The Blank Wall
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• There was this floating head that liked to eat sailboats, which made the tall, dark, mysterious man on the beach very sad. The end.
• What is it with the rainy day covers on all these Holding novels? Dreary and decidedly unhot. More skin, please.
• Actually, on third or fourth look, the streaks look less like rain than like the trim on some elaborate fur hat. Or a really, really bad haircut.

Best things about this other cover:

• This is one of my favorite pieces of crime fiction ever written. Ever. Seriously, it's that good. And unusual. Super suspenseful, with really complex and interesting characters. Women that aren't just femmes fatales. Just great. Provides a fascinating glimpse into domestic life during WWII (i.e. while the husband is away at war). Wish it would stay in @#$@ing print!
• More lazy art. Etch-a-sketch posing as op-art. And I think the guy from the other cover just walked through the book and ended up here. That lady is not a very good hider.

Page 123~ (from The Blank Wall)

"Here's something you might be glad of," he said, and held out three little capsules, bright yellow.

~RP

Paperback 166: Wild Wives / Charles Willeford (RE/Search, unnumbered)

Paperback 166: RE/Search nn (unknown ptg, 1987)

Title: Wild Wives
Author: Charles Willeford
Cover artist: Terri Groat-Ellner

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "Go on, big boy. Do your worst! I ain't ascared of your gun."
• Something about her pose makes her look not sexy but lopsided. Like her torso is the upper layer of a cake that is shifting.
• I don't know what you call this style of dress, but it is hot. Hott.
• I need a word for "gun/crotch" interaction. Wait. I think I just coined it.
• It's weird / disturbing the lengths to which the gun/phallus connection can be taken in cover art

This is a late 80s reprint of a 1956 paperback ("Wild Wives" was first published as a special bonus story within the covers of another Willeford novel, "High Priest of California").


Charles Willeford is a Noir Fiction god. Coincidentally, I just finished teaching his "Pick-Up" in my crime fiction class (seriously, just finished ... yesterday). Smart, beautifully (clearly) written, often funny, and, in parts, genuinely shocking. I have a strong hankering now to read as much of his stuff as I can.
This reprint is surprisingly rare, hence the price. Willeford is pretty collectible in any form (except, perhaps, the Library of America version I used in my class - that volume ("Noir Fiction of the 1950s") is gold: Highsmith, Thompson, Himes, Goodis, and Willeford. Here's a review by Terry Teachout (another weird coincidence - I just mentioned Teachout, specifically his bio of Mencken, in my last post for this blog)


Best things about this back cover:

• Blurbs from actual people / media outlets you might have heard of
• What is with the insane, jagged, fire-licking design?
• This book is dated 1987 ... and yet we are told that Willeford died in 1988 ... That's foresight.

Page 23~

I gathered the heavy tweed of her skirt in my hands, and lifted. The heat of her body reached out for my hands. The flesh of her was firm and yet oddly relaxed.

The rest of the quote you can see in bold on the back cover of the book (!).

~RP