Paperback 501: The Candy Kid / Dorothy B. Hughes (Pocket Books 845)

Paperback 501: Pocket Books 845 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Candy Kid
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover artist: Edward Vebell

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• I guess he didn't care for the package.
• "I said, 'Where's the candy, kid!?' I want my fuckin' Reese's back, right now!"
• Some of the best upside-down face art I've ever seen.
• I like that dude's suit.
• Check out the Fear Hand (Extreme Edition) on his lapel!
• Getting Jane to swallow her pills was always a chore.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think the guy on the cover misread this as "Never Balk At Strangling Women"
• Jo Aragon needs to buy a vowel, specifically an "e" to put on the end of his first name.
• If you want to end your teaser paragraph with a bang, I suggest the adjective "tampered-with" be nowhere in sight.

Page 123~

He woke up on coffee and a hamburger.

He rolled over to find Sylvia standing in the doorway, a horror-struck look on her face. "When you said you 'loved food' ... well ... I ... [sobbing] ... a hamburger!? A plain old hamburger!? Is that how easily I'm replaced!?"

~RP

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