Paperback 886: The Girl From Midnight / Wade Miller (Gold Medal s1221)

Paperback 886: Gold Medal s1221 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Girl from Midnight
Author: Wade Miller
Cover artist: Robert Abbett

Estimated value: $20

Best things about this cover:

• Houston, we have Hair Failure.
• She has my hairline.
• Not sure how you manage to make naked lady with giant cat look like an alien extra on "Star Trek: TNG," but here we are.
• Where the hell is Midnight?
• Kitty thinks you're hilarious.

Best things about this back cover:

• Seriously, just scooch her wig forward like an inch and you're in business.
• Rand Hammond is like something out of a Square-Jawed Sap Name Generator.
• I like the idea of Rand Hammond working quietly in his veterinarian's office when suddenly a naked bipedal cat just drops from the ceiling.

Page 123~

"His name's Wingy Heller, alias the entire phone book. Anybody remember him?"

~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 627: When Strangers Meet / Robert Bloomfield (Pocket Books 1171)

Paperback 627: Pocket Books 1171 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: When Strangers Meet
Author: Robert Bloomfield
Cover artist: Robert Abbott (is this the same guy as "Robert Abbett"—experts, please advise)

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The palette on this thing is insane. It's like the painting is badly rusted. I love it.
• I love how the cover is dynamic and violent but his eyes are still and icy and looking right at you.
• Not usually a fan of cursive fonts, but this one has a combination of sass and formality that I really like. 
• Everyone dressed better in 1957.

Best things about this back cover:

• I love how they tell you the amount down to the penny.
• One lasting impact that "Rocky IV" had on the world is that I can't take the name "Dolph" seriously.
• It's a crossword solver's delight through the middle of this cast: ANSEL! NELDA! ODON! Those are all names built for heavy grid action.
• How can you not love the word "hoofer"?
• Apparently there was a time when one could be a "mysterious young uranium prospector" and no one would bat an eye.
• If Odon Kovach "crossed the border illegally, the first question that presents itself is: which border, exactly?

Page 123~

But his gross, florid features revealed nothing of his thoughts. He was still taciturn, still dour and surly.

Robert Bloomfield scored in the 87th percentile on his SAT Verbal. Or so I'd infer from this passage.

~RP

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Paperback 556: Big Man / Richard Marsten (Pocket Books 1235)

Paperback 556: Pocket Books 1235 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Big Man
Author: Richard Marsten
Cover artist: Richard Abbett

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• This is somehow both unremarkable and quintessential. I wish the background lady were a little more crisply rendered, a little bit less like some medieval woodcut, but I love the distressed title font, the nutso Lee Marvinesque shooter, and the tiny detail of the shell casing floating between his eyes and the gun. Oh, and the red. The big, bold, blood red. All great.
• Richard Marsten = Evan Hunter = Ed McBain, for those of you playing the alias name game at home.
• 1959 is the dead center of my collection, so I have a particular affection for books from that year, especially beat-up but still complete and readable crime fiction paperback originals with sensational covers. The somewhat lousy girl art is the only thing keeping this from being Perfect.
• It's honestly creepy how much this guy appears to be imitating Lee Marvin in "Point Blank" ... which won't come out for almost another decade.

Best things about this back cover:

• Carfon looks like something that should have a "TM" after it and be on the handset of chunky 1980s car phone.
• May Taglio! (not to be confused with Maytag Leo, who fixes your washer/dryer)
• I reviewed Daybreak once, a long time ago.

Page 123~

"You ain't gonna kill me," he said. "If you don't know it, I do. You just ain't gonna kill me in cold—" and I pulled the trigger.

This page dragged me right in and I read to the end of the chapter. It's amazingly brutal. The next killing's even colder. And none of these people is May Taglio! Based on these pages, I don't see him having Any problem killing his wife. I might actually read this one cover-to-cover.

~RP

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