Paperback 918: Call for the Saint / Leslie Charteris (Avon 526)

Paperback 918: Avon 526 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Call for the Saint
Author: Leslie Charteris
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Tied-up lady's expression: "So, uh, are we gonna do this or aren't we? .... guys?"
• This looks more like ballet than a legit needle take-away. What is that showoff one-handed bullshit? With that dramatic right hand? WTF, Saint?
• Would-be assailant is both racially and genderly ambiguous. I'm going with Philippine woman, but that's a (needle) stab in the dark.
• This cover has needle *and* bondage, so it's priceless, no matter what the market dictates.

Best things about this back cover:

• She's got quadrilateral eyes!
• Needle me once, needle me twice!
• No shapely rags for you, missy!
• "Almost screamed"? Not sure if her voice didn't quite there, or if she thought better of it, and went for demure statement instead.

Page 123~

"Killed? De Champ? Why, he'll moider de bum!"

Had to read this a few times to get it. I figured De Champ was a French dude.

~RP

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Paperback 867: The Dutch Shoe Mystery / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 2202)

Paperback 867: Pocket Books 2202 (11th ptg, 1958)

Title: The Dutch Shoe Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Jerry Allison

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• This cover says a lot of things, but one of the things it does *not* say is "Dutch Shoe."
• "But she could be number! NUMBER!"
• Pretty sure that's not a regulation police hold—at least not with gun drawn. Does look cool, though.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, signed by quote-unquote Ellery Queen. How elegant.
• "The patient was rich Abigail Doorn, whose money ran the hospital." Yeah, see, you would never introduce anyone "rich so-and-so," and also "whose money ran the hospital" kind of covers that.
• Also maybe don't put "more than life-size portrait of a heroic doctor" next to a super-tiny portrait of a doctor.

Page 123~

Djuna leaped out of his kitchen at the shrill br-r-ring of the telephone bell. "For you, Dad Queen."

I really, really want to believe that a Dad Queen is some kind of sex thing. Something men named "Djuna" would be in to. Please don't shatter my illusions, thanks.

~RP

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Paperback 832: The Unknown / ed. D. R. Bensen (Pyramid T2326)

Paperback 832: Pyramid T2326 (2nd ptg, 1970) (reprints Pyramid R-851)

Title: The Unknown
Editor: D. R. Bensen
Cover artist: Brad Johannsen
Illustrator: Edd Cartier
Introduction: Isaac Asmiov

Estimated value: $7-8


Best things about this cover:

• Seriously, *everyone* in 1970 was high on LSD 24/7. It was the law.
• Self-help + horror = this.
• "Hey, doc, I dreamt my mother got jaundice and then she smiled and started bleeding tiddlywinks out her eyeballs … whaddya think it means?"
• Those milk bottle-sized hypos are terrifying. Before I saw the little hash marks on the ones in the foreground, I just thought they were the topless towers of her (her?) imaginary dreamscape, man.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Text.
• All wonderful authors. This collection is probably worth reading.
• Second Coming of Satan, eh? OK, I'm in.
• I like the "****" bit toward the end because I can imagine it means "[expletive deleted]."

Page 123~ (from "Doubled and Redoubled" by Malcolm Jameson)

Jimmy Childers went with alacrity.

Keep your bathroom habits to yourself, Jimmy.

~RP

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Paperback 637: The Way the Cookie Crumbles / James Hadley Chase (Pocket Books 77922)

Paperback 637: Pocket Books 77922 (1st ptg, 1974)

Title: The Way the Cookie Crumbles
Author: James Hadley Chase
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Is the drug in the needle gonna make the mimes go away? If so, shoot me. Now.
• I'm sorry. I said "mimes." What I meant was "mimes hovering over my death bed."
• I don't know what corner-mime is miming, and I really don't want to know.
• Design team leader: "Well, the title refers to cookies, so I'm thinking... chicks, drugs and mimes. What do you think?"

Best things about this back cover:

• JAIL BAIT. Sure, sounds good. There's been no image continuity or discernible theme so far, so why start now?
• If her morals are ripe, shouldn't they be at their peak? Is she chaste? Is that what you're saying? I don't think that's what you're saying.
• Aaaaaand ... a murderous dwarf. Of course. Perfect. OK, I think we're done here. Unless there's a kitchen sink someone wants to shoehorn into this plot somehow.

Page 123~

"Oh, never mind. Why didn't you get yourself some clothes, Jess? I sent you enough money."
"What the hell do I want clothes for?"
"Paradise City isn't New York. You can get picked up by the cops for looking the way you do."
"Frig the cops!"

If you ever wondered where N.W.A. got their inspiration for "Fuck Da Police"—well, now you know.

~RP

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Paperback 472: The Woman Racket / Gil Lawrence (Pyramid G468)

Paperback 472: Pyramid G468  (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Woman Racket
Author: Gil Lawrence
Cover artist: Miller (?)

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• The doctor's eyes! It's like he wants to blow that damned needle.
• The painting of the girl is actually pretty damned hot. I Love her dress. And her ... what is that, a datebook? 
• "Fury With Legs": an abstract concept that can get up and walk around!? Tell me more ...
• I like to think the girl is being pursued by Fury With Legs, mostly because she looks more like someone about to die in a horror movie than she does a girl going to get an abortion in pre-Roe v. Wade America.

Best things about this back cover:

• If you want to spice up your nouns, just put "Flesh" in front of them. It'll really make your flesh prose pop. (See!?)
• Shocking, brutally honest ... but not frank.
• Who is this "Miller" person and what does he have against first names?

Page 123~

I weighed the assets and demerits of the polygraph machines. "Yes," I told him finally. "I think it's a good idea. Lie detectors are good for snotty kids."

See, an ordinary writers would've just gone with "pros and cons," but this guy is a thesauristic master: "assets and demerits!" All hail unnatural usage! (Also, I'm imagining the polygraph industry's awesome ad campaign: "Lie detectors: They're good for snotty kids!"

~RP

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Interlude—people send me books sometimes

After buying a book from me, reader JamiSings was inspired to send me a bunch of campy old paperbacks: several Agatha Christies, a romance novel, and a couple of sex books ("Sex Games that People Play" —about the unsexiest book I've ever briefly looked at—and "The Sensuous Woman" by J, which I've heard of and which is quite graphic in places). Of these six, I thought two of them deserved special notice.

First, the harrowing tale of Vincent Price's elaborate scheme for revenge against those bastards at Godiva Chocolate:



And second, the touching story of a woman with a secret passion for dry-humping enormous cloves of garlic:


~RP

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Paperback 341: Crooked House / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 753)

Paperback 341: Pocket Books 753 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Crooked House
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Paul Kresse

Yours for: SOLD! (10/10/10)

Best things about this cover:

• Extreme Close-Up!
• The needle—beautifully rendered, with fantastic detail. Has an apparent weightiness and heft, a solidity, that makes it really stand out. The indentation of needle on skin is a wicked little touch. Nice.
• The talons—nothing accentuates a hypo cover like sexy/sinister blood red nails.
• I guess "Crooked House" is a more mass-market-friendly title than "Granddad's Heroin Addiction"

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, there's one "Who?" for each of the listed suspects, but somehow piling them up in a line there at the end diminishes their rhetorical effect / makes the imagined narrator sound like a psychotic owl.
• Someone named her child "Clemency?" "And this is my brother, Parole, and my sister, NoloContendere."
• Most enigmatic description I've seen in a while: "Death meant something special to weak-looking Laurence." With that kind of set-up, Laurence better be a carrion-devouring zombie or I'm going to be Very disappointed.

Page 123~

"My dear Sophia, do you really think an old gentleman of over eighty is the best judge of a child's welfare?"

Judging by the cover, grampa's got bigger problems than being 80.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 37

Title: Wolf in Man's Clothing (Dell 136 — 1st ptg, 1947)
Author: Mignon G. Eberhart
Cover artist: [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $20

• So ... it's about a nurse with giant bloody hands who sticks needles in her head. Interesting.
• Where the wolf?
• Love love love the little Dell mystery eye-in-the-keyhole logo.

• This book's got a hypo cover, with all its original permagloss, *and* it's a mapback? Book sale jackpot!
• "You know what my favorite part of the book was? ... Fork."
• "Balifold" must be either a castle that has sunk into the earth or ... a minaret construction plant.

Page 123~

I put my finger on it and he looked at it, his face as inexpressive as a Red Indian's.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 8-11

A Mess of March ... I'm moving all the NGAIO MARSH titles to the front of the queue (literally, Roger Daltrey sang the word "queue" as I typed it just now ... freaky coincidence) because one of my readers seems to have a thing for her :)

Book 8: Singing in the Shrouds (Berkley, 1960)
Cover artist: photo?

• A book that takes on the collapsing telecommunications system, apparently
• Her miniskirt has its own miniarm.

• Finally, someone has tamed the wild, native, animalistic mystery novel and made it "civilized literature." Where's my houseboy with the tea!?

Book 9: Death of a Peer (Pocket 475, 1947)
Cover artist: Aargh, uncredited

• This lady's got Fear Hand (TM). In fact, she appears to have a double case of it.
• Ouch. Skeleton key to the eye. That's gotta hurt.

• Well if it's WEALTHY, of course we care...

Book 10: Death of a Fool (Avon T-254, late '50s)
Cover artist: Uncredited

• Fear Hand! (TM)
• Jenny recoils in horror as she sees that her gardener has failed to blow all the leaves off her front lawn. And squirrels on her bird-feeders!? Oh, the humanity.

• Inspector Alleyn arrives to cut through the heathen nonsense of the simple souls. Civilization! God save the Queen, wot!

Book 11: Swing, Brother, Swing (Pocket 762, 1951)
Cover artist: Lew Keller

• "Swing, Brother, Swing ... for Hepcats only, man!"
• Secret ingredient to all good mystery cover copy — just add "... with DEATH!"

• I'm sorry, I started laughing at "accordion" and haven't stopped yet

~RP

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Paperback 282: If the Coffin Fits / Day Keene (Graphic 43)

Paperback 282: Graphic 43 (PBO, 1952)

Title: If the Coffin Fits
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $50


Best things about this cover:

• One of the greatest hypo covers of all time (yes, "hypo covers" is a thing — very collectible)
• And the award for "Most Realistic Depiction of Hand Hair" goes to ...
• God that spike is glorious. I almost want to start doing heroin just to experience the feel of something so elegantly designed.
• Joe Shirtless does Not want to shoot up, but stone-faced blond guy can't wait. He has that barely-contained psycho-sadistic look about him. I think it's the posture, plus the intent stare: [Trembling ever-so-slightly] "This is going to be @#$#ing awesome!" Maybe he's a hypo connoisseur. Or just likes handling terrified man flesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, small type. Less is More!
• This book should be called "Badger Game" — I'd read it just to figure out what the hell that phrase meant.
• Why is "Jail Bait" capitalized and italicized? Is it a novel? (actually, it is, and I own it, but I don't think the book is what's meant here).
• "Mr. Big" — Ouch. One million points off for lack of originality.

Page 123~

I said that was a lot of heifer dust. He was inclined to argue.

I believe "heifer dust" = "bullshit," but it would be a great street name for some drug ... something way, way worse than "angel dust." "We cut the PCP with cow shit ... try it!"

~RP

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Paperback 147: Shock Treatment / Wright Williams (Beacon Books 143)

Paperback 147: Beacon Books 143 (PBO, 1957)
Title: Shock Treatment
Author: Wright Williams
Cover artist: Peeping Tom

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• I love how she looks - not terrified, but exasperated: "You again!?"
• Wait - I thought she was in her bathroom and the peeping tom was opening the window shade, but it seems just as likely she's in a hospital with mobile curtain dividers, in which case a. whose arm is that?, b. what's it yanking on?, and c. what is that red cloth? What am I looking at!?
• "AT LAST..." - HA ha. I was just asking myself, "Why is there no book that explores the borderland between love and perversity?" Now, at last, that void is filled.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Sure, big Eric was crazy. Crazy about women! And who can blame him? Am I right, guys!? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about ... [amused chuckles from drunk comedy club crowd] ... ah, chicks."
  
• Whimsical drawings of cruel medical experimentation. "It'll cure your pervertedness, but ... you're gonna experience some rubber-arm, I'm not gonna lie."
• Maybe those arms are supposed to represent the gyrations of patients at the "hospital dance" (!?)
• "Not since Snake Pit ..." - I can't stop laughing long enough to comment on that line
• "Frankly!"
• "Passion-wracked!"

Page 123~

Instead of thinking of Katrine as a lovely, attractive girl who had bravely come out of a harrowing experience, I was drawing mental pictures of her in bed with a man married to someone else. It was rotten of me, and I almost welcomed the self-loathing that I began to feel.

Well, we've all been there, right?

~RP