Paperback 505: One Minute Past Eight / George Harmon Coxe (Dell D346)

Paperback 505: Dell D346 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: One Minute Past Eight
Author: George Harmon Coxe
Cover artist: Robert Maguire (mysteriously attributed to Freeman Eliot)

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• "No. Not yet. I will show you my boobs at one minute past eight ... and not a minute sooner."
• This title was the result of arduous negotiations between the "8:01" people and the "Fifty-Nine Minutes Before Nine" people.
• How in the world does this cover painting get misattributed to "Freeman Eliot" (see back cover attribution)? Aside from the fact that that is manifestly a Maguire girl, there's the little matter of the partially visible and absolutely distinctive *signature* in the bottom right corner. Maybe "Freeman Eliot" is like the "Alan Smithee" of paperback cover art credits—when you want to take your name off a dog, you have them attribute your work to a catchall fake name.

Best things about this back cover:

• In case you forgot the title, the clock is here to remind you.
• This is one of the least grabby back cover synopses I've seen.
• What is this "cold conviction?" Surely not the mere (cliché) fact that "He was in a strange land, among strange people, and up to his neck in murder." PS "Strange people?" They're Venezuelans, not Martians.

Page 123~

Dusk had begun to finger the sidewalks now and here and there a light winked on in some store window.

Unless Dusk is identifying the guilty sidewalks in a sidewalk line-up, I'd *really* consider changing that verb.

~RP

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