Saturday, December 29, 2007

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

4 comments:

justjack said...

I had this idea for years about the typical Quinn Martin-produced 60's-era tv-p.i. show. The voiceover guy at the beginning, see, would say, "tonight's episode: Hickory Dickory DEATH!"

Anonymous said...

Isn't that already an Agatha Christie novel?

http://www.amazon.com/Hickory-Dickory-Death-Agatha-Christie/dp/0671702637

justjack said...

arrrrrgh! Curse that Agatha!

[and happy new year everyone]

Michael5000 said...

Properly speaking, dice don't "spell." It should be "The Dice Indicated Murder." That would be more catchy.