Paperback 982: Nothing More Than Murder / Jim Thompson (Dell 738)

Paperback 982: Dell 738 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Nothing More Than Murder
Author: Jim Thompson
Cover artist: George Geygan

Estimated value: $60-75
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• Seriously, what part of him is she stroking? It looks like a lion's paw is growing out of his stomach.
• I think the bed is supposed to be on fire, but all I see is his hair on fire. Like, "Oh my god, she's stroking my paw ....!!!" and then cartoon fire shoots out of his head.
• Her hair is nuts, but she is otherwise not hard to look at.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love love love the color blocks, and the terse, terse blurbs.
• More blurbs should be as succinct and enigmatic as "Strong meat"
• But then "both in style and story" shoulda been lopped. Adds nothing. Why am I editing this back cover copy 60+ years after the fact!?

Page 123~

A couple of bobby soxers stood up near the popcorn machine, giggling and talking to Harry, and watching me out of the corner of their eyes.

The period of pulp culture I'm most interested in can probably best be defined as "that period during which the term 'bobby soxer' had currency" (so, '40s-'60s, give or take)

~RP

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Paperback 979: Caught / Henry Green (Berkley BG472)

Paperback 979: Berkley Medallion BG472 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Caught
Author: Henry Green
Cover artist: photo

Estimated value: $30-50
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• Major English author, sleaze-ified. I love when that happens.
• Get it? The net is because ... she's "caught." It's, like, a metaphor or something.
• This book is exquisite. A booksale steal. Belonged to a distinguished professor at Binghamton University (he signed his name inside—the only thing keeping this from a 10/10 condition rating)
• Armpits have their own tag on this blog. I am terribly proud of this.

Best things about this back cover:

•  LOL scare quotes. "'Caught,' see? We're speaking metaphorically."
• Look, if there's not an enmeshed naked dame involved, then I don't wanna know about it.
• Most pulp paperbacks are not blurbed by Christopher bleeping Isherwood.
• Just wanted to let you know that the teaser passage that precedes the title page of this book features this choice bit of prose: "She murmured to herself, 'THIS MAN'S MY GONDOLA...'" (emph. orig.)

Page 123~

"Now why, that's what we've got to consider," Pye heard as, in self defence, he let his eyes wander out to the cream yellow sunlight on the ungrowing, still winter grass. "Why," the voice came at him again, "Why? There must be a reason. That is where we want your help."

OK that is bleeping ominous. I really should read this guy.

~RP

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Paperback 973: The Road's End / Albert Conroy (Gold Medal 231)

Paperback 973: Gold Medal 231 (PBO, 1952)

Title: The Road's End
Author: Albert Conroy
Cover artist: [Barye Phillips]

Estimated value: $17-22
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• No joke, this dude looks eerily like 22-year-old me. Leering ladies in my doorway, not so much.
• "There were too many women in his life"—you'd think at least one of them would help him clean that sty.
• This appears to be some post-apocalyptic tale of drought, where water is money so you keep it close at hand and never wash anything.
• Where ... did his fingers go? Fear claw!

Best things about this back cover:

• "Curved feminine flesh" is less sexy-sounding than this book seems to think it is. More meat cut than sexpot.
• "Who are you?" he asked. "And who am I?"—finally, a sleaze paperback that reflects the then-current trends in existentialist philosophy.
• "I found a pasty man and put him in the shed. Can we keep him, mom? Can we!?"

Page 123~

My knee came up automatically and sank into his groin. And again. And again.

OK, I'm out.

~RP

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Paperback 971: Convict Lust / Robert Wallace (France 58)

Paperback 971: France 58 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Convict Lust
Author: Robert Wallace
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $25-30
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• Fishnet headboard. Interesting.
• Bouffantastic!
• Her get-up, despite color clashing, is pretty cute. Those stockings, however, were not meant to be seen below the ankle.

Best things about this back cover:

• This non-centered block of text is oddly common. There doesn't appear to be any particular aesthetic at work. Maybe it adds the aura of "cheap and forbidden" the publisher's trying to create.
• Hemingway's "The Killers" has a main character called "the Swede." I'm guessing this story isn't as good as "The Killers."
• This book should've been called "His Welding Equipment."

Page 23~ (Page 123 being boring and unrepresentative)

A few hours ago I was a happy-go-lucky goof-off going on twenty-seven. Then I run into the best lay in the land and—presto! chango!—I'm an old broken-down jerkhead and frightened stiff.

You tell 'em, Chango! (rhymes with "tango"). P.S. the first sentence of this novel is "She ripped off her panties and hopped into bed." In medias res!

~RP

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Paperback 968: Eros Laughed / Bart Mayes (France Books F19)

Paperback 968: France F19 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Eros Laughed
Author: Bart Mayes —credited nowhere on either front or back cover :(
Cover artist: "Cover photo by Sam Wu" ("photo posed by professional model")

Estimated value: $25
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Jesus wept.
• Is that a bare mattress?
• It is at least somewhat remarkable that these books provide a *photographer* credit. Most paperbacks don't give their *fully painted covers* an artist credit.
• This book is immaculate, but for a bent-up corner of the back cover.

Here's the fold-out!:

• "Odd" and "ball" desperately want to be reunited. See also "twenty" and "eight."
• Hey! Hidden lesbian content! That stuff's not normally, uh, hidden where these books are concerned.
• Based on the last two France covers, it appears that what men want in their fold-out covers is a generous expanse of haunch. Nothing wrong with that.

Best things about this back cover:

• Gonna start referring to myself as "on the dark side of thirty." I'm 46, so I think it works.
• Wow this writing is straight terrible. First, it just doesn't got with the girl pictured. Second, the whole last third of the paragraph adds nothing to either the "eros" of the passage or to character development or Anything.
• Oh, Gawd, indeed.

Page 123~

When Louise saw her fully clothed, she dressed, too, and they sat together tiredly, letting the coffee do its beneficial work.

Good ol' coffee. Doing the work. Easing the shame. My best friend.

~RP

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Paperback 966: I.O.U. Murder / William Francis (Signet 865)

Paperback 966: Signet 865 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: I.O.U. Murder
Author: William Francis
Cover artist: uncredited

Estimated value: $6-10
Condition: 3/10

Best things about this cover:

• This is pretty brutal. Normally, these dead-ladies-reclining-over-beds-or-couches covers are pretty sexed-up affairs, and there's definitely a sexual element here, but the violence of the scene, particularly her chillingly open eyes, really undercuts the eroticism. Which is probably as it should be.
• That window is oddly free of ... well, everything.
• That circle in the middle—the one that makes her look like she died doing some kind of odd trick with a hula hoop—is not original to the cover. Someone set something circular and tacky on the book, and then yoink: circle. Puts me in mind of a peeping tom's telescope lens. A happy accident.
• I'd've fought hard for keeping "Rough on Rats"

Best things about this back cover:

• A hard-boiled tagline if I've ever seen one.
• Also, nothing says "hard-boiled" like "third-rate Los Angeles bar."
• That last line spirals off into incoherent purple territory. Otherwise, fine, standard-issue crime fiction cover copy.

Page 123~

I waited in the car for Barney. He joined me in a few minutes and we drove back to the office and hauled the case up to my rooms. I paid Barney, and watched the elevator drop out of sight before I went in and locked the doors and opened the suitcase. It was full of round, flat cans, each of which held a spool of film.

The best part of this is that after the first sentence, my mind imagined the entire scene as part of an episode of "The Flintstones."

~RP

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Paperback 965: Ruby MacLaine / John Roeburt (Hillman 151)

Paperback 965: Hillman Books 151 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Ruby MacLaine
Author: John Roeburt
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $6-9
Condition: 3/10

Best things about this cover:

• So ... that is a plausibly human head, torso, and backside. After that, the wheels come off. She would have to have 10-ft-long legs for that foot size to be right. Also, no one can stand like that and not put at least *some* pressure on the bedclothes. But mostly, the problem is perspective. The bed looks like it's for a child, and the lamp and bedstand are comically small. Trump-hand tiny. Dollhouse tiny.
• Still, credit where credit is due: the backside makes it highly unlikely anyone's fretting too much about the mini-furniture.
• "FEEL MY MORBID POWER!" exclaimed a drunk and exultant John Roeburt as he stumbled along Broadway, a rumpled New York Times in his hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• See. Back cover designer knew what to do with that front cover: CROP.
• "Backstreet"? Take that, N*SYNC!
• "There'll be compensations" is an utterly implausible bit of dialogue. Also, I was proposing ... asking ..." makes no sense. You were proposing or you were asking, but you were not proposing asking. Although maybe a guy who ruffles a girl's hair as a come-on has bigger problems than grammar.

Page 123~

"I want to be admired for my mind," Ruby said winkingly.
Coulter looked critically at her. "That was on the square," he said slowly.
She looked levelly at him. "I want resources other than just my sex."

Later, Coulter says, "I get the dig." That makes one of us, Coulter.

~RP

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P.S. the first line on the first (teaser) page of this novel is: "They made their agreement in a motel." I probably would've bought this book on the strength of that premise alone.

Paperback 941: Sanctuary (with Requiem for a Nun) / William Faulkner (Signet T1900)

Paperback 941: Signet T1900 (4th ptg, 1st thus, 1961)

Title: Sanctuary (with Requiem for a Nun)
Author: William Faulkner
Cover artist: photo cover

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

Best things about this cover:

• When Lee Remick wants a rewrite, Lee Remick *gets* a rewrite.
• "Sure, it's filth, but it's Nobel-winning filth, so devour it with a clear conscience, dear readers."
•  Not sure who's in the foreground (I like to imagine it's Faulkner), but he's got some grade-A Fear Hand going on. Her hand is more Claw Hand / Slap Hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mrrow.
• That description of Temple Drake (great name!) is both sizzling and ultra-vague. "Courts horror" is an awkward phrase to say and look at.
• William Faulkner looks like Peter Sellers playing William Faulkner.

Page 123~

Then he was standing over and she was saying Come on. Touch me. Touch me! You're a coward if you don't. Coward! Coward!

The confused waiter smiled and returned slowly to the safety of the kitchen.

~RP

Paperback 915: Murder in Room 13 / Albert Conroy (Gold Medal 806)

Paperback 915: Gold Medal 806 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Murder in Room 13
Author: Albert Conroy
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $6-8

Best things about this cover:

• Women Falling Backwards Over Beds Or Couches should really be a "Tag" on this blog. Happens all the time, or at least, let's say, six times.
• This looks like Barye Phillips, but there's no art credit, so ... Uncredited.
• I think the figure departing via the door is supposed to look sinister, but instead he looks cartoonishly cornball. Like some combination of Peter Lorre and Boris Badinov and a badger.
• I think the giant "13" is where it is because the artist kind of screwed up her middle section. Foreshortening of the body is all wrong and her boobs are just ... odd ... somehow.

Best things about this back cover:

• The evidence! Now in dramatic yellow!
• This reads like the most generic crime story pitch of all time. It's got all the elements. Ex-pug. Alcoholic haze. Motel. Raincoat. I mean, I'd be *in* if you gave me even the *slightest* reason to care.
• Murderer! Now in dramatic italics!

Page 123~

"What the hell do you want?" She sounded surly-drunk.

This novel probably sucks, but I'd say this guy's compound adjective skills are at least promising.

~RP

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Paperback 913: One More Unfortunate / Edgar Lustgarten (Bantam 360)

Paperback 913: Bantam 360 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: One More Unfortunate
Author: Edgar Lustgarten
Cover artist: Bernard Safran

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• "I was Mr. Arm Veins 1938, 1939, and 1941. Don't ask about 1940. Here, drink this."
• "First, let me show you this here invention I come up with. I call it, 'The Butt Scratcher'...."
• Wow, when he rolls up his sleeves, he really Rolls Up His Sleeves.
• That knife-arm, everything about it, is really striking. And yet I'm weirdly mesmerized by the torn wallpaper patch (authentic seediness!) and her shoes, which I really wish I could see in profile. And closer up.

Best things about this back cover:

• Young Ronald Reagan was not allowed to ride the children's choo-choo train. Would / he / die?!
• I love how the issue here isn't the horrific fate of Kate Haggerty, but how her horrific fate might reflect on Captain White Man.
• Damn evidence. Always with the mounting.

Page 123~

He gave his answer in loud, almost truculent tones.

Ooh, I like that. I think I'm gonna steal it. "Almost Truculent: The Rex Parker Story"

~RP

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Paperback 864: A Man Called Spade / Dashiell Hammett (Dell 411)

Paperback 864: Dell 411 (2nd ptg, 1st thus, 1950)

Title: A Man Called Spade
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $30

Best things about this cover:

• Spade's tie is super-excited for battle.
• If you looked in a 1950 encyclopedia under "Private Dick": this picture. Chiseled. Determined. Behatted. Textbook.
• Fear Hand Photobomb!
• The scale / perspective is All wrong on this, but given that awesome green shirt, I'm gonna allow it.
• "She screamed as Spade dashed up the stairs"—get it? "Dashed"? Yeah, you get it.
• I have a friend whose kid is named Dashiell. Art Spiegelman's son is named Dashiell. This concludes the Dashiell-shout-out portion of my the program.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoa. You know, sometimes we forget that 1940s apartments were all long couches and putting greens.
• Max Bliss is the best unintentional porn name I've come across in a Long time.
• I love a pitcher of Bloody Marys as much as anyone, but maybe ease up on the celery there.
• Wow, Max Bliss's daughter is taking that "50 Shades of Grey" thing a bit literally.

'
Page 123~ (from "Too Many Have Lived")

She was short, square, as if carved economically from a cube. 

Talk about economical. That is some haiku-esque objectification right there. Classic.

~RP

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Paperback 860: Case of the Petticoat Murder / Jonathan Craig (Gold Medal 784)

Paperback 860: Gold Medal 784 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Case of the Petticoat Murder
Author: Jonathan Craig
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $20


Best things about this cover:

• The second movement of "Eroica" *is* pretty groovy…
• That hand is halfway between Fear Hand and "You Want Some of This?" Hand.
• I really, really like that bare suggestion of a bed frame. It's a pair of lips! It's a gun sight! The whole spirit of Sexy/Danger conveyed in a few graceful black arcs.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mustard. I think that's what I'm looking at.
• I wish all the non-green words would just drop away. Now that's what I call "poetry."
• You rarely see detectives so proud of their necrophilic tendencies.

Page 123~

"Because, for one thing, I don't care for alligator."

~RP

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Paperback 853: Anna Becker / Max White (Bantam 830)

Paperback 853: Bantam 830 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Anna Becker
Author: Max White
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $8-12

Donation to the collection from The Second Reader Bookshop (Buffalo, NY)


Best things about this cover:

• Who can forget Anna Becker's great novel, "Max White"? Or vice versa, I forget.
• This cover raises one (and only one) very important question: Where Can I Get That Lamp!?
• Anna had vowed to protect the Jesus Chair at all costs! ALL COSTS!
• Ew, what is he doing with his right thumb?
• Ew, "torn between fright and desire" is rapist talk, man. "She was shaking and resisting, but … ya know." Gross.

Best things about this back cover:

• So basically it's an exposé of the sexy librarian.
• A "FRANK" exposé! Hell yeah, "frank"!
• Sometimes I think paperbacks came to exist because hardback dust jacket cover art was just So Bad.

Page 123~

So when Harrison said he liked Anna better now, she was not prepared to see what he meant.

I understand, Anna. We all understand. P.S. run.

~RP

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Paperback 846: Bachelors Get Lonely / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 4604)

Paperback 846: Pocket Books 4604 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Bachelors Get Lonely
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $10-15


Best things about this cover:

• I can confirm the basic premise of this title.
• I find this cover oddly sexy, if wildly implausible.
• Pink. I dig it. At least it's different.

Best things about this back cover:

• You had me at "Stripper Daffidill (sic!?) Lawson"
• What an odd photo choice. Random stock photo, faded and blued.
• Lam's pretty light-hearted for someone trying to catch a murderous voyeur.
• "Swell."

Page 123~

"The walls are terribly thin," she whispered. "People will know that … that I'm having a visitor."

~RP

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Paperback 845: Uncle Good's Week-End Party / John Faulkner (Gold Medal 1031)

Paperback 845: Gold Medal 1031 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Uncle Good's Week-End Party
Author: John Faulkner
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Estimated value: $20-25


Best things about this cover:

• Try to find a creepier title/cover art pairing. Go ahead. I'll wait.
• Uncle Good likes to watch. And smoke. And hunch. And not tuck his shirt in.
• The funniest thing on this cover is "Faulkner."
• MTV canceled this after one season.
• What is "NOOT?"

Best things about this back cover:

• I like how this cover starts, anyway.
• Let me get this straight: I'll laugh at the side-splitting antics of an old man who rents out his own daughters? An old man who is his daughters' pimp? Or does he rent them out as clowns for children's birthday parties? Please say "B."
• ORTA. That is all.

Page 123~

Orta June and Jewel Mae had stood up as the husbands came stumbling and crawling across the porch. Soon the husbands were thick around them.

This is like a zombie movie. But with husbands.

~RP

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Paperback 844: Death Before Bedtime / Edgar Box (Signet 1093)

Paperback 844: Signet 1093 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Death Before Bedtime
Author: Edgar Box (Gore Vidal)
Cover artist: [Samuel] Cherry

Estimated value: $15-20


Best things about this cover:

• "If I can't have this hideous table lamp, no one can!" (I'm currently Ob Sessed with the table lamps of crime fiction / film noir / crime TV)
• "Stop right there! Now, tell me … do these heels go with this embroidered bathrobe? Answer me, punk!"
• Nice leg extension. You rarely see such poise in someone scrambling to protect herself from an intruder. Old school.
• Edgar Box is Gore Vidal. I've been meaning to read Vidal's Box stuff for a while. Maybe this Christmas …

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey, his secretary can't help her spinal deformity, you assholes.
• I hope "The woman he kept a secret" is an imaginary friend.
• "The buddy who hated him" is just a great stand-alone phrase.

Page 123~

She flushed, confused. "I … I was mistaken then. I was under the impression you thought Johnson was in some way involved."

Lydia was always the first to volunteer … if Johnson was involved.

~RP

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Paperback 834: The Lying Days / Nadine Gordimer (Signet D1237)

Paperback 834: Signet D1237 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Lying Days
Author: Nadine Gordimer
Cover artist: James Avati

Estimated value: No idea (only one copy listed at abebooks, and it's a laughable $276.58) (Real value probably closer to $20)


Best things about this cover:

• Everything I don't like about Avati rolled into a neat, boring ball. Still. Inert. Dull.
• This one is so inert that you are encouraged to see it as a photo, and not a real woman. The flowers laid over the top are a nice touch, but the overall effect of this cover is still snoresville.
• "More Exciting" is not a convincing direct quote.
• OK, her shoulder's kind of hot. And that is generally the best thing I can ever say about an Avati cover: "Kinda hot." He's an artist that likes to paint vaguely sexy situations, but emphasis on "vaguely."

Best things about this back cover:

• Nadine Gordimer would go on to win the Nobel Prize. I believe this is her first novel.
• Her author photo is fantastic.
• I read the first few pages of this just now. Deeply concerned about race, as you might expect from someone writing from deep inside Apartheid-riven South Africa.

Page 123~

Joel, from whose book and whose talk I was even beginning to see that the houses we lived in in Atherton and on the Mine did not make use of space and brightness and air, but, like a woman with bad features and a poor complexion who seeks to distract with curls and paint, had their defects smothered in lace curtains and their dark corners filled with strands of straggling plants which existed for these awkward angles between wall and wall, as one evil exists simply for another.

~RP

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Paperback 828: Dead in Bed / Day Keene (Pyramid G448)

Paperback 828: Pyramid G448 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Dead in Bed
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Estimated value: $55


Best things about this cover:

• Said it before, I'll say it again: "women spilling backwards off of furniture" is an oddly common paperback cover trope. Really should've created that tag a long time ago (WSBOF).
• That left hand, like many things about her body, is physically preposterous. My understanding is that dead people are much more prone to gravity than this painting would suggest. Seriously, what is her right shin doing? It's managed to get air, somehow.
• Dude's left hand is Super suggestively placed. He also appears to be floating down from outer space, or at least the ceiling.
• Also, dude is Hawaiian. You can tell by … I don't know what.

Best things about this back cover:

• Possibly the worst tag line in the history of tag lines. Belongs in some kind of noir feminine hygiene ad.
• Yes, when you rearrange her body thusly, the picture *does* make a lot more sense.
• It's a story of more things that start with "b" than ever happened to any braindead bozo, Bolivian or otherwise.
• That last paragraph needs both a lexicographer and an em-dash remover, stat.

Page 123~

She exhaled sharply as she knew what it was like to be a woman for the first time. At least, that's what she said.

Before Johnny put his cock in her, she had imagined herself a grapefruit. Thank you, Johnny.

[Full disclosure, that bit's actually from p. 122, but there was no way I was not choosing it. No way.]

~RP

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Paperback 824: Bullet Proof / Amber Dean (Popular Library SP294)

Paperback 824: Popular Library SP294 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: Bullet Proof
Author: Amber Dean
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, turns out you can do A Lot with a fairly monochromatic palette. This is fantastic.
• For a simple cover, it's amazingly suspenseful. Great use of light, especially on her face. Her face is the key—the craning around and the look of wide-eyed horror really sell the idea that something terrible is just on its way, just out of view.
• The creepiness of the bondage is amplified ten-fold by the simple, naked mattress. How can a cover be so elegant and so sleazy at the same time?

Best things about this back cover:

• I still hate this logo. It does not look like "CRIME." It looks a poorly executed fertility statue.
• "Virginia Kirkus calls it 'non-stop'"—that made me LOL: "Seriously, it wouldn't stop. I as like 'Stop! Why won't this story stop!?' But it just kept going!"
• "Readable!"—these just get better and better. "… in that it was made out of recognizable words, which were arranged in vaguely grammatical patterns…"

Page 123~

"It was their job, Hallie. Police have to learn how to destroy human dignity, or they'd never break through the really calloused, the hardened."

I'm just gonna leave that there.

~RP

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Paperback 759: Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper / Georges Simenon (Signet 1188)

Paperback 759: Signet 1188 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper
Author: Georges Simenon
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• That guy has the best "[sigh] Dames…" face ever. Ever.
• His hands are amazing. This pose is so weird, the framing of the stripper so unusual. I kind of want to shout "Get Out Of The Way, Dude!" but then I remember a. she's dead, so that's kind of wrong, and b. artistically, this cover is original and cool.
• It's hard to believe she's dead with her right arm in that position and her right knee up like that. I say she's alive, and therefore, "Get Out Of The Way, Dude!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Yes, I smoke a pipe. Why? Because I'm manly and Belgian—what the fuck do you care, buddy?"
• Mmm, "dark bistros" and "smoke-filled dives" … tell me more.
• Simenon is one of those writers I keep meaning to read and never do. I read one novel, I think: "Maigret à New York." In French. I enjoyed it. The end.

Page 123~

They had only about five hundred yards to go in the nearly deserted boulevard. The nightclubs, their signs glowing in the rain, couldn't be making a fortune in this kind of weather, and the bedecked doormen stayed under cover, ready to unfurl their big red umbrellas.

~RP

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