Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Paperback 901: The Queen's Awards / Ed. Ellery Queen (Perma Books M-3015)

Paperback 901: Perma Books M-3015 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Queen's Awards
Editor: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: William George

Estimated value: $10-14

PermaM3015
Best things about this cover:
  • Hunting Che Fear Hand Strangulation Revolutionary Ponytail! I love this story!
  • Those frames are a bit ... ornate. That said, I'd kill for a real-life version of Strangulation in Red, frame and all.
  • Ellery Queen was a pseudonym for these guys. Also the name of the main character in their novels.

PermaM3015bc
Best things about this back cover:
  • I give the opening alliterative salvo a C-.
  • "Anyway you like your murders..." is a phrase that bespeaks a certain Coliseum-esque savagery in the typical mystery story audience.
  • Eleazar Lipsky wrote the story that was the basis of the film noir classic "Kiss of Death" (1947).

Page 123~ [From "The Stroke of Thirteen" by Lillian de la Torre ("as told by James Boswell, August 1780") (!?!?!)]
"The ingenious Captain Donellan," replied Dr. Johnson, "is a disciple of Linnaeus. He grows the oriental poppy. With that cord-handled claw by his tent he sacrifices the capsule of the poppy, as I have been told they do it in the East Indies where he served. He collects the gum that forms. To put a name to it, it is opium. I smelled opium in the affair when I was informed that Allan MacDonald had been hearing 'sounds colored crimson,' as drugged men may do."
18th-century drug-induced synesthesia! Who saw that coming?

~RP

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1 comment:

Michael5000 said...

Woah, I had no idea about Ellery Queen's biune nature!