Paperback 725: The Case of the Lazy Lover / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 909)

Paperback 725: Pocket Books 909 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: TCOT the Lazy Lover
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Clyde Ross

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• That dude has my ultimate respect. That is some top-notch lazy. Superfly PJs. Highball. Slippers. Smart green couch. He knows what he's doing.
• That look in her eye is not lust. It's not annoyance. It's jealousy. Jealousy of his Red Hot Lazy.
• I can't stop looking at her boobs, and yet I don't find them very interesting. What the hell?

Best things about this back cover:

• That "Gossip … / and Murder!" heading would look great on a t-shirt.
• Hmmm. I'm not sure we have the same definition of "crazy punchline."
• What does it mean to be "lazy about making love"? I'm quite sure the images in my head do not match whatever happens in this book.

Page 123~

Mason took the pass Lieutenant Tragg scribbled, and went over to the detention ward. After a ten minute wait, he was taken in to see Mrs. Allred, who had quite evidently been aroused from a sound sleep and had had no opportunity to put on her make-up.

Wow. That must've been really hard on Mason.

~RP

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Paperback 724: Live With Me / Jerry M. Goff, Jr. (Merit 612)

Paperback 724: Merit Books 612 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Live With Me
Author: Jerry M. Goff, Jr.
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $27


Best things about this cover:

• I honestly don't know what I'm looking at. Unless her bra straps clasp behind her head like some kind of necklace, I can't see why her elbows are up that high. Is she making her boobs do a little dance performance? Her companion seems intrigued.
• Those are some straight-up terrible hands. Or hand, I guess. Hands are always the giveaway. Only the best artists can do hands right. The reason for the giant boobs and Krazy Eyes is to distract you from the terrible, terrible hands. 
• That left boob has a mind of its own. It seems to be experiencing the gravitational pull of the artist-lady's gaze.
• What is up with that lady's gown? Here is the dialogue I like to imagine they are having: "I like your gown." "Thank you." "Are you headed to a ball?" "Balls don't interest me much … if you know what I mean …" 

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey look, it's the artist lady, back from Barbados and possessed by twelve demons!
• "… lovely, normal and stunning …" ??? Can't wait for all the red hot normality.
• So basically Suzanne Pleshette goes on a telekinetic lesbian rampage. Got it.

Page 123~

"Tell us. Does she wash your back when you bathe? She did the other girls. That was always her first approach."

"Her second approach involved ball gowns, sketch pads, and mind control. I'm a little fuzzier on the details there…"

~RP

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Paperback 723: Death Spins the Platter / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 6126)

Paperback 723: Pocket Books 6126 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Death Spins the Platter
Author: Ellery Queen (ghost-written by Richard Deming)
Cover artist: Al Brulé

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• And the award for worst mixed metaphor goes to …
• I'm the DJ, he's the Piper?
• Quit getting your grubby thumbprints all over the vinyl, lady. Unless it's one of them there braille records and you are deaf, in which case, carry on.
• Looming background head is the best.

Best things about this back cover:

• I now want to name everything "Tutter King." 
• Because King Tut was taken?
• No one tutted better than he! Nary a one!

Page 123~

"Did you find fingerprints on the ice pick?"

'
~RP

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Paperback 722: Strange Longing / Orrie Hitt (Chariot Books CB-1626)

Paperback 722: Chariot Books CB-1626 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Strange Longing
Author: Orrie Hitt
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• This was also the cover for Axilla Fetishist Monthly (April 1963)
• One thing about saran wrap lingerie is: the itch.
• Man I wish the girl in the dark in the back ground were more in the light in the foreground.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Oh, don't mind me, I just wandered over to this side of the room and got tangled in the drapery somehow."
• Seriously, what is happening there?
• "Bunny soft"— I'm laughing quite hard right now.
• Ladies, if you really wanna sex up your bedroom patter, call it "the portals of the 'forbidden world'!"

Page 123~

"I don't do the kind of dances they'd want."
"Who cares about dancing? The men don't come inside the tent for that."
They got into another bottle of rye and Emily paraded around the room.

~RP

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Paperback 721: Operation: SEX / Kimberly Kemp (Midwood F181)

Paperback 721: Midwood F181 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Operation: SEX 
Author: Kimberly Kemp
Cover artist: Paul Rader

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Operation: LACK OF IMAGINATION
• I have an alternative title for this book: Naughty Pine.
• This cover manages to be both deeply disturbing and super hot. Indirect evidence of nudity = very effective.
• You have to love the absurdity of the pull-down window shade in the foreground—it's architecturally impossible, of course, but does a cool job of implicating us in the voyeurism.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa. Ruby? Tell me more about Ruby. The cover said nothing about Ruby.
• "Anything!"
• Talk about burying the lede—how is the front cover not more lesbianified? I mean, I love the cover, but if lesbian pulp has taught me anything (and it Has), it's that when your book has lesbian sex in it, some visual/textual indication of that goes on the cover. No beating around the bush. As it were.

Page 123~

She visualized the tiny droplets striking the shoulders and then draining down in liquid rivulets, down over those peaked breasts. Down. Across that smooth belly and down into—

End of paragraph. I assume the next words were going to be the aforementioned bush, but who knows?

~RP

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Paperback 720: That Kind of Girl / Stanley Curson (Brandon House 741)

Paperback 720: Brandon House 741 (PBO, 1965)

Title: That Kind of Girl
Author: Stanley Curson
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $35


Best things about this cover:

• Which kind of girl? Prematurely gray? Exceedingly tanned? Vinyl-loving? Shoe-collecting?
• Seriously, those shoes, in all their green-ness and out-of-context-ness, totally make this cover.
• V is for Vortex Of Forbidden Love 
• I like that Ms. Gray is making a big "V" with her arms. Why she's covering her crotch with jazz hands, I don't know.

Best things about this back cover:

• The pic itself is kind of adorable.  Hey! Lurid text! Leave those kids alone!

Page 123~

Anne gripped his organ experimentally …

OK, I cheated. This is page 122. But what was I supposed to do? Ignore this sentence? I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

~RP

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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

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