Sunday, March 21, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 53

Title: The Girl With a Secret (Crest d961, 1st ptg, 1960)
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

  • Love the eerie, vertiginous, slightly puke-green staircase. Worthy of dungeons or Dali-esque nightmares.
  • Her "secret" appears to be that despite being a grown woman, she likes to slide down banisters. Or else she has a severed head in that bag. One or the other.

  • Oooh, the Oakland Tribune. Well la-di-dah.
  • "WEB OF TERROR" — get it? Author's name is CHARLOTTE Armstrong. And she has created a WEB OF TERROR. CHARLOTTE'S WEB ... OF TERROR! "Wilbur, no!!!!!"
  • "Then on their honeymoon she stumbled on a deadly secret" — such a promising line. So disappointing to know that the secret is just a stupid scrap of paper.

Page 123~

Alice breathed in the reality of Tony-alive and Tony-here. She didn't much care about anything else at the moment.

"Tony-alive" was, of course, the very unsuccessful follow-up to Hasbro's "Baby Alive."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

5 comments:

Sam said...

No way I drink coffee while reading your posts, Rex. NO WAY. (:=D

Random White Guy said...

Ah, the good ol' days, when you just needed to know someone for only two weeks before deciding to commit yourself to a lifetime together.

Alix said...

"Very stupid", of course, is implied.

Unknown said...

From the vertiginous staircase, the shoes in her hand and the nervous look back over her shoulder, I can only assume that she's creeping out following a one night stand with a lighthouse keeper.

Jeffrey Meyer said...

I'm wondering if that cover is by Harry Bennett?

More examples here:

http://www.goofbutton.com/2007/03/harry_r_bennett.html

His son Tom is very approachable and may know if this is his father's work.