Sunday, January 29, 2012

Paperback 494: The Meandering Corpse / Richard S. Prather (Pocket Books 50292)

Paperback 494: Pocket Books 50292 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: The Meandering Corpse
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


PB50292.Meandering

Best things about this cover:
  • "I feel like I've got something on my back, but I can't see it, and can't quite reach it. Do you see anything?"
  • This is how they mark blondes after a flood so that you know there's no one left living inside.
  • I'll buy that she's a corpse, but I see nothing that suggests meandering. Primping topless while seated in a spotlight is not "meandering."
  • Shell Scott was so popular he got his own Head icon. He and Mike Shayne are the only dicks I can think of who got this honor, though I'm sure there are more.


PB50292bc.Meandering

Best things about this back cover:
  • You had me at "Zazu."
  • I did not know that birds climbed ladders.
  • I'm unsure of the implications of this conversation. Is he saying she oughta be 18 before skinny-dipping? Are women more inclined to skinny-dip as they get older? Shell seems oddly judgmental. Either that, or he just likes 'em a bit more mature. "Call me when you're 45, toots."

Page 123~

"I squeezed the steering wheel tight in my fists and jammed my foot down on the accelerator, jammed it all the way down and left it there."

"Must get home .... can't ... miss ... 'America's Next Top Model'!"

~RP

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5 comments:

Richard Heft said...

Travis McGee, Matt Helm, Joe Gall (relatively obscure series by Philip Atlee) and Drake (slightly less obscure series by Dan Marlowe) all rated head icons.

D.A. Trappert said...

Edward S. Aarons' Sam Durell books have them--but they are on the back cover. Also, they change over time.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the Durell books had FRONT-cover head icons too, in some of the later printings.

Anonymous said...

"Shell Scott was so popular he got his own Head icon. He and Mike Shayne are the only dicks I can think of who got this honor, though I'm sure there are more."

So... dick heads?

Anonymous said...

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