Paperback 1096: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M-3043)

Paperback 1096: Perma Books M-3043 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Red Harvest

Author: Dashiell Hammett

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 8/10

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• More like Red Housecoat! Just an amazing garment.
• "Say 'candy cane' again. I dare you. I double dare you, motherfucker. Say 'candy cane' one more goddamn time!"
• The geometry of this interaction is mesmerizing. The hand triangle! Her left hand and her right cross and his "fear hand"—so much intense hand drama. Plus that look of complete contempt on her face ... god bless you, Lou Marchetti, king among cover artists!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Not sure whose idea it was to put the "-DER" over the "WHO-" but it was not a good one.
• This is a fairly succinct and vivid account of a thing that actually happens in the book. It does make me want to read the book. Nothing fancy going on back here, but in terms of drumming up interest in the story, mission accomplished.
• I miss laudanum. And ice picks. Do people still do laudanum and kill with ice picks? Inebriation and murder were just *better* in the old days, man.

Page 123~

    "Reno and his mob were in the can. Reno was Yard's pup, but he didn't mind crossing up his head-man. He already had the idea that he was about ready to take the berg away from Lew." I turned to Reno and asked: "Isn't that it?"

    He looked at me woodenly and said: "You're telling it."

    I continued telling it. 

I love how much Hammett loves hardboiled slang. Always got the tough-guy patter down pat. This is what makes Hammett so enthralling—a great ear for dialogue, which makes the whole criminal scene feel dramatic and authentic. 

~RP

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Paperback 1095: Man-Killer / Talmage Powell // Running Scared / Bob McKnight (Ace D-469)

 Paperback 1095: Ace D-469 (PBO / PBO, 1960)

Title: Man-Killer / Running Scared

Author: Talmage Powell / Bob McKnight

Cover artist: Rudy Nappi / Rudy Nappi (signature visible)

Condition: 8 or 9/10

Value: $30

Best things about this cover: 

• "You've had your breakfast of canned baked beans and coffee, now get out of my yellow house! Don't make me have to hold this gun properly!"
• She and that rifle sure seem, uh, friendly.
• This is one of the greatest fuck-off power poses I've ever seen on a paperback cover. I do believe she would, in fact, kill a man, possibly several.
• "The Lady's For Hanging" yeah good luck with that

Best things about this back cover: 

• Crawling Scared!
• "Murder On My Heels ... hey, where the hell are my heels, anyway? Must've lost 'em when I crawled through the swamp in my underwear oh well"
• The Ghost of Lee Marvin is very disappointed in your push-up technique

Page 123~ (from Man-Killer)

    The man paused at the mouth of the alley, a big, brawny shadow. I saw him stiffen. He was staring at the white blob of my face in the infiltrating light. 

    "Calhoun!"

    It was Giles Hustin.

OK, whatever suspense, whatever sense of impending terror you were trying to work up there was immediately and entirely dissipated by "It was Giles Hustin." Giles Hustin is not the name of a man who makes other men quake in fear. Giles Hustin is the name of a man who plays folk music every Thursday from 9 to 10 at The Rusty Skillet. 

Also, I'm worried about Calhoun's face.

~RP

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Paperback 1094: Mardios Beach / Oakley Hall (Perma Books M-4042)

 Paperback 1094: Perma Books M-4042 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Mardios Beach

Author: Oakley Hall

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8-9/10 (mild dings to the corners, else perfect)

Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover: 

• "Wilma!"
• "Stella!"
• He was a heel and worshiped only one god—SUSPENDERS!
• William Holden just woke up and wants to know where his goddamn shirt is!
• The lady looks sad and frightened, but actually she's just petting and gently whispering to a small mouse on her arm named Marvin. "I don't know why the mean man is yelling, Marvin. Maybe he's rehearsing a play. You want some cheese?"
• His left hand is so dramatic, perhaps because his right fingers are caught in the hinges of the door?

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Frank" alert! "Frank" alert. We have "Frank," I repeat, we have "Frank"! (And "Brutally frank" at that—that's the best kind of frank!)
• Now I'm wondering how louses (lice?) are typically made.
• From what I gather from this back-cover description, this is a novel about a guy who just punches people in the groin over and over. It's a hard life, but if you wanna be a louse, you gotta put in the work.

Page 123~

"All right. Quick! What's a woman's function?"

"Give up? The answer is: to Find My Damn Shirt! These suspenders are startin' to itch! Now open this door right now. Hey, is Marvin in there? You and Marvin better not be talkin' about me again ..."

~RP

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Paperback 1093: Black Friday / David Goodis (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 1093: Black Lizard (unnumbered) (1st ptg, 1987)

Title: Black Friday

Author: David Goodis

Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 9 or 10/10 (they don't come any better—looks brand new)

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• Well, sure, if you live in the sewer, every Friday is Black Friday
• A jug of wine, a single boot, a weird ... I'm gonna say 'coin purse' ... and thou ...
• It looks like a hand gun fossilized inside a coin purse, or handbag. Maybe if we could get a little more light in here...
• I love that Kirwan works his name into the objects in his paintings. No way you're gonna cheat him out of an artist credit! (check the neck on the bottle)
• I adore these late-80s, pre-Vintage takeover Black Lizards. They go through a white-spine and then a later black-&-gray spine incarnation. This one is of the white-spine variety:

• I'm so mad at the lack of complete vintage paperback checklists online. My kingdom for a one-stop shop featuring numbered lists of every paperback by ever imprint, including reprint houses like Black Lizard. Sigh. Everything out there is incomplete and/or hard to navigate—though I do like BookScans pretty well

Best things about this back cover: 

• Woof. Pretty bland back here.
• According to backyardchickens.com, pickled eggs are "100% absolutely horrible frozen." In case that Mike Wallington blurb was giving you any ideas.
• Ah, good, they gave Kirwan his artist credit after all. Nice.

Page 123~

"There's the other dog. Over there, Charley. You looking?"

"No," Charley said. "You look."

"Aw, don't, Charley. Don't be that way."

"What way?" Charley asked mildly. "I'm just telling you to look, that's all. I want you to have a good look."

"Jesus," Rizzio said. And then he sobbed it. "Oh Jesus—"

The dog is a Doberman and the Doberman ... seems to have had a mild disagreement with Charley and Rizzio's partner, Mattone. The phrase "there was little of his throat remaining" makes an appearance. I'm usually a "root-for-the-dog" kind of person, and since these guys shot a dog a few pages back, I don't feel so bad for Mattone, frankly.

~RP

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Paperback 1092: The League of Frightened Men / Rex Stout (Avon 20)

 Paperback 1092: Avon 20 (PBO, 1942)

Title: The League of Frightened Men

Author: Rex Stout

Cover artist: I.N. Steinberg

Condition: 6.5/10 (well worn but tight and sturdy)

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• That's a honey of a cover, Mrs. Dietrichson (since this lady's hair is almost as bonkers as Barbara Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity, I had to make the reference; had to)
• Lacquered. That is how I believe you'd describe ... well, everything about this woman. Those eyebrows are ready for battle. And that is the side-iest sideeye I ever saw. Lethal.
• Dig that spooky, wavy title font. Man, they do not make 'em like they used to. This is a swell-looking book, stem to stern
• Floating heads! I live for the floating heads motif, especially when the woman surrounded by the heads is completely untroubled by the heads, like "what do you suckers want?" See also ...

And now the back cover ...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Meh. Your standard Shakespeare-head stuff. Boilerplate. 
• "Shakespeare! Get yer hot pink Shakespeare, here! Just two bits!'
• "GOOD BOOKS" but merely "Great Authors"; even capital letters were subject to war rationing
• Wait, did books used to be hard to open??? "How do you work this thing!!?"

Page 123~

    "For God's sake keep still. Don't move your head." I looked at Wolfe and said, "Somebody's tried to cut her head off. I can't tell how far they got."

    She spoke to Wolfe. "My husband. He wanted to kill me."

Well, she's talking, so as attempted beheadings go, you gotta put this one down as a failure. Still, she does bleed every time she moves her head, so it had dramatic results, at least. I found the last Stout I read (Fer-de-Lance) a little (lot) ridiculous, despite the great characterization, but I gotta say this p. 123 bit has got me re-interested in Wolfe World. Might give it another go.

~RP

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Paperback 1091: A Hasty Bunch / Robert McAlmon (Popular 445-04314)

 Paperback 1091: Popular 445-04314 (1st, ~1977)

Title: A Hasty Bunch    

Author: Robert McAlmon

Cover artist: [Uncredited]

Condition: 9

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Look, full disclosure, I have never done acid, but this is what I imagine the world looks like. Kind of a pleasant psychedelic jumble with rainbow streaks. Love the horizontal lines coming out the back of the main guy's head, and then running through the entire middle of the painting. Completely unnaturalistic and Of The Time (the '70s). My favorite figure is the guy on the far right, who looks kinda like if the Joker were a cruise director.
• The typewriter, equally great, but equally disorienting, in its own way. The keyboard makes sense to a point but somewhere east of the "F" key things start to buckle and by the time you get all the way to the right its a monstrous free-for-all. Oh, I'm not realizing that what I'm seeing is a hand hovering over the keys on the right side. Who Types Like That!?
• I got this book solely because of the cover. I didn't start out collecting anything from the '70s, but, well, time has passed (30 years next year since I started my collection), and the '70s are now fair game, especially when a book is in near-perfect condition and just sitting there on the $1 shelf.
• Sometime in the '70s, Southern Illinois UP reprinted some long out-of-print American books, and then ended up partnering with Popular Library here to release a number of them as mass-market paperbacks: their Lost American Fiction Series. This book is part of that series. There are 15 other books listed, with intriguing titles like THE PROFESSORS LIKE VODKA, CUBICAL CITY, and THEY DON'T DANCE MUCH. I am ... curious. This particular book has an afterword by writer Kay Boyle. Here's the full list of everything Southern Illinois Press brought back.
• I'm also curious about this cover artist, whom I love, and whose name I don't know. I believe he's also the artist on this early-'70s Bantam cover:

[You can see the resemblance, I hope. If you know who it is, kindly holler.]

And now the back cover...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Telling it how it really is and especially "sexual candor" are always big selling points for paperbacks. Not just truth, but (as the front cover says) "naked truth." What fun is the truth if it's wearing clothes. People want stuff that's sexily truthful. Hornily honest. In a word: frank. (I wish that word were somewhere on these book covers—my favorite cover copy euphemism; been a while since I've seen it)
• This book was originally published in 1922, and even then it was barely published at all: "Reprint of a Contact Press edition privately printed by the author in Dijon, 1922."
• This books is a collection of short stories by an ex-pat who apparently hung with Hemingway and Joyce. "Prophetic genius"? That is a big claim. Let's see what p. 123 has to say: 

Page 123~ (from "A Business Family")

"It doesn't do a place any good to have a person die in it. We ought to have insisted on her being taken to a sanatorium."

Mrs. Sturgeon runs the "Rest an Hour Kosher yearround hotel," and one of her guests, Mrs. Davis, has just done her the great disservice of dying in her establishment. Hugely inconvenient, the dead.

~RP

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Paperback 1090: Operation Intrigue / Walter Hermann (Avon 706)

 Paperback 1090: Avon 706 (PBO, 1956)

Title: Operation Intrigue

Author: Walter Hermann (aka Walter Wager)

Cover artist: Uncredited, dammit

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• "Operate!?" "It takes a very steady hand..."
• I feel like Pensive McGee there is about to exclaim, "Hey, what if we split this into two different games: Battleship ... and Operation!" "You mean, 'Operation Intrigue', of course." "No, there's no intrigue. There's just this goofy looking guy on an operating table and you try to remove his various body parts without getting an electric shock." "O ... K, but can I still use my baton? I must insist that this be a baton-based game. Look how fun it is, pointing and pushing, doo doo doo..." And somehow this all leads to a war in Southeast Asia 10 years later.
• I love the hard edge dividing the foreground from the background of this painting. It's like the guy on the right is mad at the people on the left 'cause their side of the painting is boring as hell. "I'm over here looking like the baddest hardboiled motherfucker this side of Flatbush, and those dorks are playing board games? Nah, this won't stand. This is my cover. They gotta go."
• Seriously, that's a great-looking fist and a perfectly level gun. I like how the guy is literally too big for the frame. "They think these little white lines can hold me? Me and my fedora will show 'em, we'll show 'em all!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow, that is ... quite a "7". They're really leaning into that numerical visual concept. Big, fat Pop Art-lookin' "7." Nothing scarier, nothing more ... intriguing ... than a "7," that's for sure. 
• You got a cool name like OPERATION MINOTAUR and you decide to call your book OPERATION ... INTRIGUE? INTRIGUE? Not exactly evocative of anything or memorable in anyway. And then you put a "7" on the back? Real missed Minotaur opportunities here, is what I'm saying.
• That third paragraph reads like a question on a standardized math test. "If five men and two women are checked by four counter-espionage agencies, how many Minotaurs etc."

Page 123~

He had done this massive thing. He felt so strong and proud and clever. Then he thought of the women's clubs and creamed chicken luncheons he would never have to face again, looked at the handsome muscular sailors, and smiled. They were fine healthy lads. They were his friends.

I'm just gonna assume the "massive thing" is coming out, good for him, Happy Pride, everyone!

~RP

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