Paperback 862: The Valiant Strain / Kenneth E. Shiflet (Dell First Edition B126)

Paperback 862: Dell First Edition B126 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Valiant Strain
Author: Kenneth E. Shiflet
Cover artist: [Robert McGinnis]

Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Lieutenant Grumpystache misses his Xbox.
• That neckerchief is beautiful. I also love the orange, the hint of mountains, the way the line of soldiers on horseback extends and fades to nothing. Fine little touches like these make this potentially generic cover visually interesting.
• Turns out McGinnis can paint things other than bored-looking half-naked ladies with ample hips. I had to double-check my own labeling just now, because I thought "no way this is McGinnis."

Best things about this back cover:

• "A story as big and rugged as these two giant dueling cocks … oh, sorry sabers. Those are sabers. All appearances to the contrary … sabers."
• I can't wait to read about the "strain" that brought the giant dueling cocks men to their "final glory." I am in. Money down, out the door. You had me at "shavetail."

Page 123~

Roan thought of how Graham had denied them.

Don't deny them, Graham. Open your heart. Let your love flow. And nevermind that I'm taking things out of context, just go with it.

~RP

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Paperback 823: Last of the Breed / Les Savage, Jr. (Dell First Edition 37)

Paperback 823: Dell First Edition 37 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Last of the Breed
Author: Les Savage, Jr.
Cover artist: Stanley Borack

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I told you I didn't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no calves! I told you!"
• Mysterious stranger just wants to borrow a bucket.
• Wardrobe malfunction in 5, 4, 3 ...
• We get it, Stan Borack—you are good at drawing hands. Stop showing off.
• "I don't know, Les, I think this tale might be a bit too savage. Do you think you could make it …?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Looks like this book was in Brian Sheridan's back pocket when he got into whatever he got into on the front cover. Books with war wounds!
• He came alive as a man. It was a good feeling. If this isn't a tale of sexual awakening, I'm gonna be very disappointed.
• What is up with the design on this cover? "The blue arrow going round and round symbolizes life's twists and turns, while the sloppy gray daubs that frame the arrow symbolize the artist's not giving a shit."

Page 123~

Jess Miller was helping a pair of bonneted women near the rear.

Because bonnets make it practically impossible to see back there.

~RP

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Paperback 796: Stacked Deck / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition B197)

Paperback 796: Dell First Edition B197 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Stacked Deck
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• I see why she is drawn as a reflection of herself—the whole playing card angle—but dear god this cover would be 10x better if the top half of the painting just Continued. Down. I feel slightly ripped off. Let's just say that McGinnis had a knack for the lower half.
• The upper half is, however, is exquisite.
• Black hearts = nice touch.
• Ooh, short stories. That's cool. You don't see that very often in single-author paperbacks.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the description of the Hollywood swimming pool as "well-stocked." 
• "Debonair" is one of those words that can cut both ways—teeters on the wall between "cool" and "repulsively slick."
• Last line there is a super-weak attempt to drum up some Marlovian mystique. Face it: you're never going to get more succinct and bad ass than "Trouble Is My Business," so don't even try.

Page 123~

He stared glumly at the coffee, pulled himself out of the chair and spilled the coffee into the sink. He lifted the Scotch bottle from the closet, spilled three fingers into a glass.
"What a waste of good material," he groaned.
He lifted the glass to his lips, drained it, shook his head sadly. "What a waste!" [end of story]

This after a woman left his apartment, telling him that she was going to turn herself in to the police. I can only assume that that last line is an aural pun that is utterly lost in print.

~RP

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Paperback 764: The Sirens of Titan / Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Dell First Edition B138)

Paperback 764: Dell First Edition B138 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Sirens of Titan
Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $65


Best things about this cover:

• Yes, *that* Vonnegut.
• This year's sexiest accessory—the asteroid belt!
• God bless Richard Powers. Most of his stuff does not contain what is traditionally known as "Great Girl Art" (GGA), but … this'll do.
• I love her electric blue emanations.
• Seriously, the colors on this are Gorgeous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow. Terrible cover copy—at least in the headers.
• I have not read this book, but it sounds like the future is not awesome. How can that be?
• Isolation of the female figures here is a nice touch. Not sure why they have a handle. But I don't mind.

Page 123~

Unk went into the furnace room and closed the door.

He was excited, though he didn't know why. He began to read by the light from the dusty window.

Dear Unk:—the letter began.

~RP

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Paperback 730: Doctor with a Gun / Richard Ferber (Dell First Edition A198)

Paperback 730: Dell FE A198 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Doctor with a Gun
Author: Richard Ferber
Cover artist: John Leone

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• I guess I can kind of make out a gun, there, in a holster near his knee. Still, with a title like that, you'd think you'd make the "gun" a little more prominent. "Doctor with a Horse!"
• What do you call those kinds of neck ties? Not bolos … 
• Few doctors had the guts to ride alone through the Land of Mustard.

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a damned stupid layout of KILL OR BE KILLED. It makes no sense. What are all the "Kills"? why would you wrote "Be" after "Kill" — "Kill Kill Kill OR Kill BE Killed ellipsis Kill Kill" WTF?
• Nothing more sheeplike then "the whole town" in a Western. 
• If Luke Short's word is so important, maybe give it slightly more prominence? Just a thought.

Page 123~

Nothing was as simple as it seemed. Nothing could stand isolated, without sooner or later infecting something else. There was no good in running away. 

Damn. Matt Kirby has gone full Greek Tragedy. Pray to Athena, Matt! I hear that works sometimes.

~RP

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Paperback 663: Women / Ed. A. M. Krich (Dell First Edition D3)

Paperback 663: Dell First Edition D3 (PBO, 1953)

Title: Women
Editor: A. M. Krich
Cover artist: Walter Brooks

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Women—can't live with 'em, can't tear their arms off.
• Women—how to tell a real one from a sculpture.
• Women—baffling us with their arcane "experiences" since the times of the ancient Greeks
• I'm familiar with the green "women" symbol, but I'm having trouble with the mysterious pink thing they've thrown around her neck. Is that a diaphragm?

Best things about this back cover:

• "Prepuberty in Women" seems self-contradictory.
• "The Unmarried" sounds like a horror film.
• "Menopause: It's Scary So Here's A Comforting Euphemism."

Page 123~

Among the Arapesh, the problem is seen not as maintenance of potency but as resistance of seduction by strong positively sexed women. "She will hold your cheeks, you will hold her breasts, your skin will tremble, you will sleep together, she will steal part of your body fluid, later she will give it to the sorcerer and you will die."

Sorry, I'm still giggling at "She will hold your cheeks..."

~RP

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Paperback 650: Hospital Hill / Adeline McElfresh (Dell First Edition B201)

Paperback 650: Dell First Edition B201 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Hospital Hill
Author: Adeline McElfresh
Cover artist: Bob Abbett

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Smoking doctor. Smoking car. Smoking lady friend. Like flying, being a doctor used to be so fucking glamorous.
• I hate when reality shatters my dreams.
• If there were a Hall of Fame for author names, I'd immediately induct Adeline McElfresh.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like how the ellipsis makes it look like Doctor Chris Chiselface is thinking the whole thing.
• I think the cover nicely captures his noble ideals (/sarcasm).

Page 123~

Old Mrs. Pearce was in the kitchen, nursing a steaming bowl filled with a greenish, pungent-smelling liquid. She greeted him with a sly smile.

"I reckon I'm catched," she wheezed.

Chris grinned. "I guess you are, Grandma."

Chris then shot her in the head for being a witch.

~RP

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Paperback 603: Angel Eyes / Robert Dietrich (Dell First Edition B203)

Paperback 603: Dell First Edition B203 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Angel Eyes
Author: Robert Dietrich (pseud. of Howard Hunt)
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• I call wig.
• It's like there's a giant vacuum just out of frame, sucking the left side of her head away—earring and hair eerily defying gravity.
• She died the way she lived: fondling her bongos.
• She died the way she lived: on a giant magic diaper ride.
• She died the way she lived: one shoe on, one shoe off.

Best things about this back cover:

• Chunky pictorial question mark for the win!
• "I'm Bentley. Steve Bentley." — Steve Bentley, wowing them with his Bond imitation.
• You might ask what / the rationale is for / the line divisions on this back / cover copy

Page 123~

"As for any feeling I have about that little Bolac whore, I could put it all in a thimble and still have room for my finger."

I don't know what "Bolac" means and I don't care—this line is unimprovable.

~RP

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Paperback 587: The Nothing Man / Jim Thompson (Dell First Edition 22)

Paperback 587: Dell First Edition 22 (PBO, 1954)

Title: The Nothing Man
Author: Jim Thompson
Cover artist: Stanley Borack

Yours for: nuh uh


Best things about this cover:

• I wish I had a foreground me and background me.
• It's like a PSA against alcohol-induced psychosis: "Hi folks. You ever wake up with that 'not-so-fresh' feeling?"
• By "lost the power to love" they mean he has no penis (if I'm remembering this one right, which I think I am, but I could be confusing it with another Thompson title, as castration / genital mutilation is kind of a recurring theme)
• That guy looks like an actor, but I can't place him. Robert Stack?

Best things about this back cover:

• Yep, this is definitely the (or a) penis-loss story.
• Drink is a poor substitute for a penis, I find.
• Awesome psycho-face.

Page 123~

"That's awfully pretty, Brownie. Did you write that?"

"Yes," I said. "I did it under my pen name, Elizabeth Khayyam. I wrote it one eventide on a wind-swept hill while watching a father bird wing home to his wee ones. There was a long caterpillar in his beak and he had it swung over his shoulders, muffler fashion, as a shield against the wintery cold. I ... listen to me, Deborah! For God's sake, listen!"

"Heckuva job, Brownie," she sneered, right before he bludgeoned her to death with whatever blunt object was handy.

~RP

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Paperback 570: The Big Bite / Charles Williams (Dell First Edition A114)

Paperback 570: Dell First Edition A114 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Big Bite
Author: Charles Williams
Cover artist: Arthur Sussman

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• If, god forbid, I ever get taken hostage, please let it look like this.
• I love this so much. Sexy, menacing, and depraved. Manages to combine realism, abstraction, and surrealism into one hot, delicious tableau. The orange background is inspired. That bed frame is like something out of a Tim Burton film.
• The small details make this painting exquisite—her: the haughty eyebrows, the cocky hand-on-hip, the neglected negligee strap, the ambiguously hovering cigarette hand (Will she offer him a drag? Burn his thigh? Who knows!?). Him: the resigned backward tilt of his head, the perfectly framed limp hand, the perfect-electric-white shirt. This is hall-of-fame cover art, for sure. 

Best things about this back cover:

• MWAH!
• That "life's a jungle" paragraph is about as good an expression of noir philosophy as I've read since the Flitcraft story in "The Maltese Falcon."
• Charles Williams was a paperback hero. Well admired by crime fiction aficionados, long forgotten by most others.

Page 123~

She said nothing. I went on out and got in the car. On the way out of town I stopped at a small grocery and bought a dozen cans of beer and some more supplies for the kitchen. I picked up a roll of the plastic film they use to wrap things in a refrigerator with, and two rolls of scotch tape. I bought fifty pounds of ice, wrapped it in an old blanket, and shoved off for the lake. 

I love the "How-the-fuck-am I-supposed-to-know-what-Saran-wrap-is-called!?" attitude of this paragraph.

~RP

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Paperback 491: 24 Hours to Kill / James McKimmey (Dell First Edition B169)

Paperback 491: Dell First Edition B169 (PBO, 1961)

Title: 24 Hours to Kill
Author: James McKimmey
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Dishevelment, thy name is this lady.
• I like the double entendre of this title: "She had 24 hours to kill ... everyone in the room!"
• Let me answer the obvious question: yes, Robert McGinnis painted everything in sight from about 1957-64. Every paperback cover, every magazine cover, every line on every freeway, etc.
• Her slip is behaving oddly ... in relation to gravity, I mean. It's somehow coming together in a lacy, snowflaky formation to prevent us from getting the upskirt view we all so richly deserve.
• Her smirk is killer.

Best things about this back cover:

• Paradox! The back cover copy writer's second-best friend after HYPERBOLE!
• I want a business card that states my occupation as "Killer-hero of the state's young punks."
• "Teen-age" my eye. I mean, look at her feet. Those bunions say a hard-worn 28, minimum.

Page 123~

He blinked, stunned. Then he said, "I'll be right down, Rod." He hung up and picked up the machine gun. "Stay here, Sue. Lock the door and don't leave this office under any circumstance." He strode out and down the marble steps, trying to control the wild anger surging in him. . . .

I find that when I'm trying to control my wild, surging anger, I'm more often successful when I'm *not* holding a machine gun.

~RP

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Paperback 382: The Conspirators / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition C127)

Paperback 382: Dell First Edition C127 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Conspirators
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Mort Engle

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "O Steve, you're the captain of my heart! I hope we can stay like this forever and not be killed in some freakish accident like a spontaneous tidal wave..."
• I kind of love how Engle can evoke an entire yacht from just two panes of glass and one of those phallic knobby things on the steering wheel.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh.
• Is the text supposed to mirror the tidal wave on the cover? Because if so, fail.
• Gray-on-blue = not advised as a cover copy option unless you hate your readers, good taste, and common decency.

Page 123~

Carter kept his eye on the blade, started circling crab-fashion.

Fully half the sentences on this page are written in this conjunction- and pronoun-hating fashion. "He glared at Carter, pulled a long-bladed fishing knife from the scabbard at his belt." "Joe started to protest, subsided at a snarled order from Carter." Etc. Maybe Kane thinks it creates momentum. I think it creates annoyance. In me. Being a hard-boiled writer means not just paring down your prose, but knowing where the paring is supposed to happen.

~RP

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Paperback 347: The Race of Giants / Matt Kinkaid (Dell First Ed. A118)

Paperback 347: Dell First Edition A118 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Race of Giants
Author: Matt Kinkaid
Cover artist: Sam Bates

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "... do you smell something funny? Hmm ... probably just my mustache. No, wait, my ass is on fire."
• Wow, he is a giant—keeps a herd of cattle in his back pocket.
• Love how he Fills the frame; also love the partial view of the horse. Not so keen on being able to see his long johns, but whatever.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Blood on his hands ... money on his mind!"
• Not the most realistic flames, but they are pretty.

Page 123~

Julius made a small sound of grim satisfaction. "Here comes the wagon."

~RP

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Paperback 330: The Joy Boys / Walt Grove (Dell First Edition

Paperback 330: Dell First Edition B136 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Joy Boys
Author: Walt Grove
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks!

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "'I Dream of Jeannie?' Fuck that. Jeannie dreams of me!"
• I submit to you that this woman would look much better if that horse's tail were removed from the back of her head.
• That spider has six legs. Is that guy's squadron called "The Mighty Ticks?"
• "The Joy Boys" ... does not evoke aviation. It evokes something slightly more tawdry—like GLORY HOLE meets RENT BOY.

Best things about this back cover:

• Walt Grove, doing his best Mickey Spillane imitation. Tough sell.
• Seriously? "The Joy Boys" is the successor to "DOWN!?" Who knew the world of aviation had such a strong undercurrent of fellatio?

Page 123~

He wished he would stop thinking about that, but he had been around and he knew.

Looks like he's been behind the barn.

~RP

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Paperback 225: Winner Take All / James McKimmey (Dell First Edition A185)

Paperback 225: Dell First Edition A185 (PBO, 1959???)

Title: Winner Take All
Author: James McKimmey
Cover artist: Darcy (what's his first name?)

Yours for: don't know ...

I'm posting a book I don't have in front of me. I have its scans on my computer, but I don't know where it is, physically (buried in my collection, no doubt). I usually blog books that I have right in front of me, but I can't scan any new books til I replace my printer/scanner (soon), so I'm relying on old scans for the moment. I'll run across the book eventually. For now, enjoy the scans ...



Best things about this cover:

• The abbreviation "GGA" (for Great Girl Art) gets attributed to a Lot of books, but this one truly deserves the tag. Wow. Shapely, classy, with an amazing face, exquisite hands, a stunning dress, and great dark accents giving her hair a kind of controlled kinetic feel. Yes, I will spend all my money at this table.
• Sadly for her, her head appears to be bathing in a haze of smoke that starts somewhere around shoulder level.
• Love how the red title tapers down into her hands, ending in a small pile of red chips
• Always nice when an artist signs his work (or his signature doesn't get cropped in production). Here, Darcy has put the signature near where people are apt to look, i.e. in the vicinity of her rear end.

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, I bet you didn't see that coming.
• Before Garanimals, there was ... Paris Belts. "This one goes with gray, moron."
• I can count on one hand the number of paperbacks that I own with advertisements on their back covers. Really truly odd/rare.
• I actually love the design, with the different colored dots and then the same-sized logo with the little Paris man and his proud puffy shirt
• Who wrote the cover copy, Yoda? "Rugged these belts are."
• "the finest long-stretch elastic ever used in belt-making" - you don't say. Why, that is impressive.
• Two of the belts have coats-of-arms, so you can rule Scotland in style.

No Page 123, sadly, as I have no book in front of me ... aargh. OK, I'm getting a printer/scanner tomorrow.

~RP

Paperback 179: Kill Now, Pay Later / Robert Kyle (Dell First Edition B178)

Paperback 179: Dell First Edition B178 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Kill Now, Pay Later
Author: Robert Kyle (pen name of Robert Terrall)
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Nearly everything. It's quintessential. It expresses everything I love about this era - a sense of cool combined with a sense of something fading, something ending ... a kind of twilight. These two look like their best days are behind them, just behind them, and it is only beginning to dawn on them. Look, she's already forgotten how to hold a martini glass. And he seems bemused by his gun. Poor, poor, hot people.
• "Remember when we used to find wandering daughters, fight thugs, and have hot sex in my mid-century modern apartment? ... good times ..."
• Love the whimsical font - great contrast with the smoky, languid, gin-laden miasma of grief and nostalgia that pervades the bar scene
  
• Robert McGinnis could draw the hell out of a woman when he wanted to. He and Maguire are the kings of Great Girl Art. That bare foot ... I'm not a foot man, myself, but man that is cute bordering on adorable.
• Honey, I officially want a padded white semicircular wet bar for Christmas. I'll take up drinking and shooting, and you take up cigarettes, and we'll be in business. I'm not sure what we do about the kid ...

Best things about this back cover:

• Ben Gates is Looking At You
• "Dacron and worsted" - wtf? That sounds like a buddy cop show waiting to happen.
• "Contact was total" - HA ha. That kind of writing takes balls.
• So ... she tasted like a caterpillar soaked in champagne? I don't want to know how anyone would know what that tastes like.
• The back cover is ... continued on page 1!? That's a very interesting sales technique that I've seen only once before.

Page 123~

What she saw in her living room cured her of the giggles.

That is a great line - the opening line of a new chapter. How could you not read on?

~RP

PS Thanks to Duane Swierczynski for pointing out that McGinnis also painted the cover for the recent reprint of this title (published by Hard Case Crime). I prefer the original cover, but the new one definitely has its charms:

Paperback 62: Due or Die / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition B174)

Paperback 62: Dell First Edition B174 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Due or Die
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Harry Bennett


Best things about this cover:

• It's got a lot going for it: redhead, cigarette, and alcohol all represented within about one square inch of the cover, plus fierce heels and a trench-coated dude looking on, wryly.
• I think she is a monster. Why can't we see her face? Why?
• Answer: she doesn't have one.
• Actually, I think her face is some kind of hologram projector, and Johnny Liddell standing in the doorway is the resulting image: "Help me, drunken redhead, you're my only hope."
• There is a Perma Books version of Hammett's The Glass Key that (if memory serves) looks Just like this cover. Frank Kane is no Dashiell Hammett, in case you're wondering.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Kill Joy" - good idea. You meant Joy Behar, right?
• I like Johnny Liddell's mug just peeping out of the wallet slot.
• I also really like the line about the fat man in the phone booth. Now that's good cover copy.

RP

Paperback 61: The Dice Spelled Murder / Al Fray (Dell First Edition A146)

Paperback 61: Dell First Edition A146 (PBO, 1957)

Title: The Dice Spelled Murder
Author: Al Fray
Cover artist: photo cover

"Oh, dicey dice, I love you shoooo much ... no, silly, I'm not drunk. You silly die. You're silly. Yes, you are. I'm going to kick you with my toe, that's how silly you are... what's that you say? ... 'Murder?'"

Best things about this cover:

• I believe that the first murder will be caused by the Gigantic Die falling out of the sky onto our, er, heroine.
• Absurd lingerie of the most infantilizing, unsexy kind.

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, they just took that one lame photo from the cover, cropped it in different places, blew up the cropped images, changed the angles, added some kind of woodblock print of one side of a die, tinted the images orange or red, and ... voilà! Cheap, cheap, cheap!
• "Of Dice and Death" - "I know, let's make the first half of the teaser phrase a literary allusion, but then close with the good ole standby, DEATH! That makes total sense. I've got some more ideas too, boss. How 'bout?: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of DEATH,' 'Call me DEATH,' or, my favorite, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of DEATH."

RP