Paperback 956: The Big Gold Dream / Chester Himes (Avon T-384)

Paperback 956: Avon T-384 (PBO, 1960)

Title: The Big Gold Dream
Author: Chester Himes
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Estimated value: $50-60
Condition: (9+/10)

Best things about this cover:

• She has that face I get when I look at the internet for too long. But she has better lips. And better hair. In that she actually has hair.
• Love the Big Gold Font
• I'm not usually a big fan of the multi-scene cover, largely because it makes all the visual elements too small to have the kind of dramatic impact I like, but this particular iteration is nicely handled. Captures the darkness and brightness (and architectural elements) of the city really nicely.
• This book is in indescribably great condition. Shiny. Square. Unfaded. Tiny bit of wear to spine and very faint warp toward the tippy top of the book are the only things keeping this from 10/10 condition rating.
• Chester Himes is a really important writer—possibly the most important black crime fiction writer in US history. The fact that I own a first-edition Himes in *this* condition is one of the crowning glories of my 20-year collecting addiction odyssey.

Best things about this back cover:

• Those numbers slips are Fantastic. The rest, blargh.
• Does have a compelling opening line, though. I want to dream about pies exploding with 100 dollar bills!
• "The smell of fresh violence filled the air" is one of the more haunting lines I've read on a back cover.
• Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones remain the best-named detectives in crime fiction history. Hercule shmercule.

Page 123~

Slick turned his stare back to Susie. "You're not very bright, rockhead," he said. "He wants to cut himself a slice of our pie."
"He's going to get more slices than he's looking for," Susie threatened.

Ooh, double entendre. Good one, Susie.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 952: The American Gun Mystery / Ellery Queen (Avon 523)

Paperback 952: Avon 523 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The American Gun Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Uncredited

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

Best things about this cover:

• So much emotion and drama in this one little tableau. It's really quite beautiful, even though I have no idea why a gorgeous blonde in an evening gown and opera gloves would be at the rodeo.
• It's lit like a religious painting. Caravaggio or Rubens or someone. She's bathed in light, praying, pleading ... I mean, this is probably some generic shlock, but the cover makes it look complex and compelling.
• Also ... sweet chaps.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is far less compelling. What is the shape of those blocks supposed to represent? I see the belt and gun and lock, but the puzzle(ish) pieces ... aren't convincing. As puzzle pieces. I'm no jigsaw aficionado, but that top piece, for instance, seems impossible.
• I don't like being invited to "solve" the puzzle, and I've never ever read a mystery with the idea that I was supposed to solve it. I realize that makes me slightly weird, as "mystery" fans / collectors go.
• "Deadly Puzzle" is still bothering me. Who associates rodeo with jigsaw puzzles? What's more, in what universe is a jigsaw puzzle scary? Ooooh, deadly puzzle! I'm shaking.

Page 123~

He gulped down two raw eggs, a steaming pannikin of coffee, an excited regurgitation of the preceding evening's events issuing from Djuna's chattering mouth, and then dashed downtown to Times Square.

PANNIKIN SKYWALKER is my new user name.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 930: Beyond the Night / Cornell Woolrich (Avon T354)

Paperback 930: Avon T-354 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Beyond the Night
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $35 (slightly scuffed but essentially unread; beautiful)

Best things about this cover:

• Double Fear Hand!
• It's like a flood light is 8 inches from her head. No wonder her left eye exploded out of its socket.
• The Ghost Was An Undertaker Who Wore a Virtual Reality Headset!

Best things about this back cover:

• Your lips are sealed, eh? Well MY LIPS DESTROY!
• "When she beckoned, dick had to follow." Wow. That is one powerful seductress.
• SOMEBODY'S CLOTHES!—the tale of a woman who has seriously had it with doing your fucking laundry.

Page 123~ (from "The Number's Up")

She was a blonde, good-looking and mean-looking, both at the same time.
"C'mon," she said huskily. "Let's go while the going's good."

As opposed to the blonde who alternates dizzyingly back and forth between good- and mean-looking. *That* girl's hard to be with.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 927: Ashenden / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon PN240)

Paperback 927: Avon PN240 (13th ptg, 1969)

Title: Ashenden
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited (who does these awesome psychedelic late '60s Avon covers!?)

Estimated value: $15 (bit scuffed, but very tight, square, barely if ever read)

Best things about this cover:

• This is like "Being There" meets "Laugh-In" meets "Planes Trains and Automobiles" meets "Monty Python" meets "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor MURDER Coat"!
• This cover is Milton Glaser-esque.
• Purple? The spy wore ... purple? Really?

Best things about this back cover:

• It's like a dream catcher ... for breaths.
• There's a lot of "Cold" here. Nothing about the color scheme says "Cold." Earth tones never say "Cold."
• I prefer my dens ruddy.

Page 123~

R. was a soldier and regarded introspection as unhealthy, unEnglish and unpatriotic.

Great sentence, but one that cries out especially hard for an Oxford comma.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 926: The Doom Stone / Cornell Woolrich (Avon T-408)

Paperback 926: Avon T-408 (PBO, 1960) (serialized in Argosy in late '30s)

Title: The Doom Stone
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15 (tight and complete but super-water-damaged)

Best things about this cover:

• Vampires shower too.
•  "I said MOOD RING, mom. What am I supposed to do with a DOOM STONE?" "I thought you and your little friends could summon the dead, dear."
• No pupils, no nipples, no problem!

Best things about this back cover:

• Skeletor Eastwood and his international gang of the undead want their goddman doom stone back.
• Aw jeez, why are the men always selling their souls and the women giving their bodies. Can't we, just once, reverse that?
• "Insult to Southern womanhood"!? How? I hope the Doom Stone insults some lady's cornbread.

Page 123~

The Chinese girl in the ricksha said, in an astonishingly genuine Cockney accent that must have rubbed off on her from long association with merchant-mariners and limey tars, "Don't tyke too long, byeby. We imes to get there before the plyce closes down, doncher knaow." 

I think I will add Dr. Doncher Knaow to my list of aliases.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 900: Outlaw Guns / E.E. Halleran (Avon 522)

Paperback 900!!!!!!!!!!: Avon 522 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1953)

Title: Outlaw Guns
Author: E.E. Halleran
Cover artist: Bill Randall

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• I call this one "Rampant Horses On Yellow Background For Some Reason"
• Beardy's all "Oh, 'Outlaw Guns' ... I get it now! Yuck yuck yuck .... boobs."
• She has insane murdery dead-eyed vacant 1000-yard stare.
• Bitch eyebrows? Bitch eyebrows.
• This cover is terribly ill-conceived. *She* seems ready to go, right out of the box, but everything else (except the wicked awesome wood font and Beardy's mug!) is a total mess.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks less like a bandit and more like a guy protecting himself from a smell.
• Still, that sketch is pretty cool. Love the cute yellow inset.
• Well, of course, if you're gonna have "Outlaw Guns," you gotta have Outlaw Bullets. Otherwise you're just running around waving your guns going "pew! pew!"
• "Pronto!"

Page 123~

"Don't jam the chute," Frazer warned him.

Good advice.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 887: Replenishing Jessica / Maxwell Bodenheim (Avon 191)

Paperback 887: Avon 191 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Replenishing Jessica
Author: Maxwell Bodenheim
Cover artist: [Phillips & Troeger / Troeger-Phillips]

Estimated value: $12-15

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Let's see … how to replenish Jessica? Sure, I'd say FIVE MEN oughta do it.
• This appears to be the story of how the Flash got married, settled down, and got a steady job with an insurance company. "Is this what you wanted, baby?" he seems to ask.
• The most reliably informed reseller of vintage paperbacks on abebooks describes this book as a "SEX and HEROIN NOVEL," so … that's unexpected. And brings the total to two—two possible ways to replenish Jessica.
• The only reason I still attend crossword tournaments is so that Doug Peterson can slip me some vintage paperback contraband in a dingy little plastic bag. It's all quite (appropriately) sordid.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare looks dubious about the literary merits of the publishing enterprise to which he has affixed his mug.

Page 123~

"This new school does away with all of the old qualms and quandaries, and we can certainly accomplish more when we know that sex is, well, is only the violent servant that we've hired for purposes of recreation."

Actually, the violent servant you've hired is named Tony, and it'll be $300/hr.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 838: Hell-Town in Texas / Leslie Ernenwein (Avon 873)

Paperback 838: Avon 873 (2nd ptg?, 1960)

Title: Hell-Town in Texas
Author: Leslie Ernenwein
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15-20


Best things about this cover:

• Are there other kinds of towns in Texas?
• Despite appearing relatively generic, there's actually something spare, pared-down, and gorgeous about this cover. The pure blue background gives a sense of delicacy to the men and horses, and that dust is some kind of abstract magic. Just great.
• Books don't come in better condition than this. Off-the-shelf new. Sparkly, even.

Best things about this back cover:

• But what's his name!?
• Clyde Lambert grabbed a fish, but Marshal Terhune stopped him: "No, Clyde. Not Missouri Style. *Texas* Style." So they dueled with grapefruits.
• That's a pretty nice marshal sketch, truth be told. Only marshals and stone-cold fops can get away with an ascot like that.

Page 123~

Contacting the same friends who'd turned down the Oro Kid scheme, he found them eager to invest their savings in his sawmill proposition.

There's two great crime novel titles right there: "The Oro Kid Scheme" and "The Sawmill Proposition."  You're welcome, writers.

Happy Thanksgiving,

~RP

Paperback 830: Trinity in Violence / Henry Kane (Avon 618)

Paperback 830: Avon 618 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Trinity in Violence
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-$15


Best things about this cover:

• A great cover mucked up by someone's bright idea of a teaser. "Let's put the first words of the book on the cover! It'll be revolutionary!" "Where are we gonna put them?" "Why … here, right across the bottom half of the dame. Nobody likes dames on covers anyway. It's words, Words they cry for!"
• I feel like she's so pinned in by darkness that we really Need the color from the bottom half of her dress. It honestly takes me several takes, every time I look at this thing, to realize it's a fur over her right shoulder and not some weird dark thing in the foreground blocking my view.
• Also, is the apartment building on fire? If not, why is there thick black smoke around the title?
• She looks an awful lot like my second college girlfriend. My girlfriend tended to wear more clothes and carry fewer guns than this lady, but still … if this lady we're looking at is named "Rosie" (as that damned block of text suggests), then that's another weird connection, as "Rose" was an element of my girlfriend's name.
• There's something quintessential about this cover. Not great on its own, but great at capturing a certain cover type: generic, be-hatted, trenchcoated sap stands in as proxy for reader/viewer. Doesn't matter what he looks like. It matters what She looks like. And it matters that she's trouble.

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the primitive video game-like swarm of armed "A" logos. I just need a Peter Chambers icon and a joystick.
• Henry Kane looks like he wants desperately to escape the photo shoot.
• "The Scandinavian?"

Page 123~

He nudged a pinky-point at his thin mustache.

From his picture, it looks like Henry Kane knows from thin mustaches. Authenticity, thy name is Kane.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Tumblr and Twitter]

Paperback 790: The Big Brokers / Irving Shulman (Avon G1009)

Paperback 790: Avon G1009 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Big Brokers
Author: Irving Shulman
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Poster hanging outside the world's toughest barber shop.
• "We can do five haircuts. That's all. Five: The Wedge, The Mob Boss, The Moll, The James Dean's Dad, and the Sandy Duncan. You want anything else, keep walkin'."
• Honestly, though, this is how all pulp characters look in my mind. Exactly.

Best things about this back cover:

• Joyce has clearly seen every variety of dipshit male-kind has to offer.
• "Finally goes berserk" — oh, Bull, I'm sorry I laughed so hard at this. Please forgive me.
• Itzik has no front. Only a back. It's pretty gruesome.

Page 123~

Alex worked his way back toward Brighton and he stepped along briskly, without a worry in the world, picking up his bets: twos and threes and fives and tens, twenties, and even a fifty-dollar one from a player who was running in luck so that Alex wondered if he hadn't a secret source of dirt available to him, and while Alex walked, whistling and snapping his fingers when he wasn't destroying betting slips, his senses were alerted for shadows and cops.

Honestly, the sentence just before this one was even longer.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 787: The Man Who Never Was / Ewen Montagu (Avon 640)

Paperback 787: Avon 640 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Man Who Never Was
Author: Ewen Montagu
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Exciting to imagine Ghost Major—riding the seas, thwarting the Nazis.
• Less exciting when you find out "the man who never was" was actually an "anonymous corpse" that doesn't reanimate or nothin'.
• This cover manages to be clever without being particularly interesting or exciting.

Best things about this back cover:

• More visual riffs on The Invisible Man theme.
• Silly Germans—Tricks are for Victorious Americans!
• "Operation Mincemeat" sounds like a WWII-themed Looney Tunes short featuring Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Page 123~

An attempt at an immediate thrust into the area of SALONICA and THRACE need not be reckoned with.

And that's how Major Martin avoided the clap.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 746: The Avon Book of Detective and Crime Stories / ed. John Rhode (Avon 21)

Paperback 746: Avon 21 (1st ptg, 1942)

Title: The Avon Book of Detective and Crime Stories
Editor: John Rhode
Cover artist: NA

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The font? Maybe? Also pink. Pink is nice.
• This old Avon has held up *really* well. I love a good old paperback that's beat-as-f*ck but still perfectly solid and tight. You could read this a hundred times and it would just get more broken in.
• This is a classic detection bonanza right here. Not really my cup, but a pretty sweet collection nonetheless.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare-Head!
• Shakespeare likes mysteries and also the US Armed Forces. Heed Shakespeare's plea, y'all.
• You can store paperbacks in such things as "clothing" or those new-fangled contraptions, "bags."

Page 123~ (from "A Shot in the Night" by The Baroness Orczy)

My experience is that in all emotions and all weaknesses, in all virtues and in all vices, women invariably outdo the men.

But this is beside the point.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 731: The Terrible Night / Peter Cheyney (Avon T-365)

Paperback 731: Avon T-365 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Terrible Night
Author: Peter Cheyney
Cover artist: Darcy

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The cigarette. Definitely the ominous, abandoned cigarette.
• "Gore galore!"
• Title font = awesome.
• Interesting variation on the Keyhole Cover. Sadly, in this case, I get none of the titillation of voyeurism. The view is sordid. I'm all for bondage (!), but whatever's going on here seems too grim to be exciting.

Best things about this back cover:

• … sorry, I was just contemplating what a great addition THEOMARA would make to my Crossword Compiler dictionary.
• Lion + snake + woman. So he's like a griffin … kind of.
• All the best trappers use tanga.

Page 123~

O'Mara said brusquely: "No. Go to bed." He went out into the corridor; down the stairs. As she went into her room he heard her murmur: "Such a pig …"

I don't have much to go on, but my gut tells me she's right.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 726: New Orleans Lady / Viña Delmar (Avon 209)

Paperback 726: Avon 209 (PBO, 1949)

Title: New Orleans Lady
Author: Viña Delmar
Cover artist: [Bernie] Barton

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The cover of Latex Fetish Monthly, June 1949
• I love a title written in Whorehouse font.
• Her breasts are like some kind of fancy little cupcake.
• Cover's pretty boring, but if you stare at it long enough, it gets a little creepy. Dude looks like something Charles Burns would draw.

And now the back cover…

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare's like "Hey … 'sup?"
• If you sing "Eulalie" to the tune of "Layla," it kind of works.

Page 123~

She passed her hand tiredly over her forehead. "Please, Lorenz, go away. I must rest. One of my headaches—"

"Go away indeed! I'll cure your headache." He threw a glance toward Septembre. "I have news."

"I'll cure your headache." HA ha. Oh, Lorenz, you're the date-rapiest!

P.S. Septembre

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 719: The Fiery Furnace / Lawrence Williams (Avon T-497)

Paperback 719: Avon T-497 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Fiery Furnace
Author: Lawrence Williams
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

Alan Cumming *is* … The Fiery Furnace!
Anyone know what his "strange compulsion" is. I want it to be Barbie™collecting.
Though that is a pretty decent Floating Head, I'm gonna say this cover could use more her, less him.


Best things about this back cover:

• Oh my god how much do I love the photo of Smirky McAscot? (a lot)
• Do they not have obsessions in Europe? What kind of logic is that?
• Had to look up "Sicilian knife" to see how it differed from, say, a bread knife. Seems there is a traditional Italian art of knife-fighting called "Paranza Corta," but, acc. to Wikipedia, "It is still taught by individual masters but is not organized in a format suitable for divulgation to the masses." Yes, I've always found divulgation very tricky business indeed.

Page 123~

Carla was watching him, her chin set lightly in her hand, listening proudly to her businesslike lover in his professional capacity.

I guess that's better than listening to your professional lover in his businesslike capacity. Close call.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 707: Portrait of a Sadist / Paull Hill (Avon T-514)

Paperback 707: Avon T-514 (1st US ed., 1960)

Title: Portrait of a Sadist
Author: Paull Hill
Cover artist: Uncredited

Gift to the collection from reader "Stacy" (Thanks!)


Best things about this cover:

• This cover won the "Least Sexy Bondage Painting" contest of 1959.
• Seriously, stare at that foot for a few moments. It just gets creepier.
• You have to admire a sadist whose bondage technique involves colorful ascots.
• Curlicues on the "R"s make the "T" look like it has a fancy mustache.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like the jagged black-and-white electricity that engirds this cover copy. High voltage!
• I like books that express the dark confusion between horror and titillation. "This man sex was sex a hot dirty sex monster sex whose sex story should serve as a sex cautionary sex tale and definitely not masturbation material sex."
• You say "perverted psychopathic lusts," I say "sexual irregularities," let's call the whole thing off.

Page 123~

His whip was at that moment reposing in his suitcase at Bournemouth West railway station, but once again he had his supply of handkerchiefs.

OMG I love that sentence so much. Not sure which is my favorite part: "whip," "reposing" (so genteel), "handkerchiefs" (!!!), or "once again" (!!!!?).

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 662: The Saint in Europe / Leslie Charteris (Avon 611)

Paperback 662: Avon 611 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Saint in Europe
Author: Leslie Charteris
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The Saint, starring in ... a PSA about V.D.
• Her shoes are amazing.
• Her dress isn't bad either.
• I like how they're both standing in their own little pools of light. It's not a dynamic painting, but it's got an ambiguity and tension and sexiness that I like.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Gayest!"
• Cows that wear diamonds? Oh, Europe. 
• I always did like that little Saint icon.

Page 123~

"Just think of me," said the Saint, "as a guy with a weakness for puzzles, and an incorrigible asker of questions."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 660: The Plague of Sound / Con Steffanson (adapting Alex Raymond's story) (Avon 19166)

Paperback 660: Avon 19166 (PBO, 1974)

Title: The Plague of Sound (Flash Gordon 2)
Author: Con Steffanson (from orig. story by Alex Raymond)
Cover artist: G. Wilson

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "You call that a Bach organ fugue!? Argh, your sound plagues me! Get out of my space church, Redbeard!"
• "It's OK, honey. You're safe now," he said, after bravely firing at nothing.
• I proclaim that to be the thinnest shirt ever worn by man or beast.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, that is one awesomely self-parodic damsel in distress. She's got the dramatic arms and the proud, heaving bosom and the blow-up doll mouth and everything.
• That first paragraph may as well say: "First, a bunch of random shit happens..."
• In the future, there will be sciences. Plural. Be there!

Page 123~

Sawtel's stunpistol flashed out of his tunic and quietly whirred.

Hmmm. Is that a whirring stunpistol in your tunic or are you just glad to see me?

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]