Title: The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse
Author: Mike Avallone
Cover artist: Jack Floherty
Yours for: $19
Best things about this cover:
- Peek-a-boo nighties are a staple of vintage paperback covers, but you rarely see the women in said nighties *actually* playing peek-a-boo.
- Or maybe she's just sad. Or performing some odd modern dance routine. Whatever she's doing, she appears to be doing it while wrapped in the kind of cellophane they use to cover fruit baskets.
- "Oh, what's a corpse to do!? [sob sob, toe point]"
Best things about this back cover:
- "Flounced" is a fabulous word.
- Nice contemporary hot-chick references in the opening sentences. I like how the writer is on a first name / first name / last name basis with these legendary lookers.
- "She wore clothes nakedly" = Avallone at his Hammettiest.
- Second paragraph reads like a tagline discard pile. "You put those on the cover!? Those were just notes!"
- Rarely, upon taking candy from a baby, do you demand that it take off its clothes.
Page 123~
He dug a thick fold of something from his pocket, fanned it out. Checked it the same way you do a map. It was a map.
Sometimes, you gotta stay literal. Keeps readers on their toes.
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
12 comments:
Isn't the word "just" in the second paragraph in the wrong place? It seems as if it should read, "Her figure didn't just take your breath away, it never gave it back."
Given the name of the novel, my first thought was that it was a peekaboo bodybag.
Although on further inspection, it kind of looks like one of those see-through raincoats you sometimes see (through.)
Oh, when WILL those crazy mixed-up corpses finally get together?
I kind of love everything about this one. In fact, I have never had areal urge to read one of your featured books until now.
The excerpt from pg. 123 made me LOL, literally. (LOLL?) That's some mighty fine imagery right there.
For a second I thought her waist/back was horribly misshapen, then I realized that one pale part in the back was still the raincoat and not the background.
Frank totally stole my Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse joke.
I love the page 123 quote.
You know, there's something really weird about her stomach. It has this severe V-shaped indentation in the belly button area. Like a bird took a bite out of her.
I love the pot-boileriness of the back cover blurb, but I feel sorry for Anita Ekberg that she wasn't famous enough for a first-name-only reference.
Aaaah, them Anitas is a dime a dozen, fella. Take it from me.
But Ekberg? There's just one a them. The rest of 'em changed their names!
Is this a sequel to The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies?
"Rarely, upon taking candy from a baby, do you demand that it take off its clothes."
Speak for yourself, buster. It's a big world out there.
"Flounced" was a good word until it came to mean "Left an internet message board and announced beforehand why you were doing so." Now it's just annoying.
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