Monday, December 30, 2013

Paperback 732: A Taste for Cognac / Brett Halliday (Dell 10c 15)

Paperback 732: Dell 10c 15 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Taste for Cognac
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob Stanley

Yours for: $15

Dell10c15

Best things about this cover:

  • Red hair. Bow tie. Side glance.
  • That ugly booth bench puts her in a rather weird, hunchy, decidedly unsexy position.
  • His hand is almost too expertly rendered. Seems like a living thing, operating wholly independently from Cap'n Bow Tie.


Dell10c15bc

Best things about this back cover:

  • Psst, Blackie. He's gonna need his face for, you know, talking.
  • Love trigger-happy gunmen. So much cooler than gun-happy triggermen. Or gun-shy gunmen—those guys are the worst.
  • I am intrigued by the concept of "Night Bus."


Page 23~

"So you think I did it?" Shayne fumed.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

5 comments:

Baron d'Ormesan said...

Isn't a night bus a pretty straightforward concept? In London, and presumably elsewhere, it means a bus that runs after the normal daytime bus schedules have finished. Taking the night bus back from a a party or a club is part of every Londoner's education.

Karl said...

I was going to say that there's no way a bow tie could be pointy on the side like that, but apparently there is:

http://images.cdn.bigcartel.com/bigcartel/product_images/127407312/-/Paisley_2_Bow_tie_by_OoOtie_Boston_Bow_ties.jpg

But there's DEFINITELY no way Mr. Shayne could be seeing the stewardess-in-green with his head un-rotated the way it is. He'd need another eyeball behind his left ear.

John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur said...

Perhaps the "dame" on the oddly shaped bench is actually perched on Capt. Bowtie's shoulder?

Also love the list of other books in the 10-cent series. Some are classics, some disappeared unlamented. You can just never tell, can you?

A said...

I gotta read this book!

Anonymous said...

"Night Bus" is the basis for "It Happened One Night."