Friday, June 13, 2014

Paperback 787: The Man Who Never Was / Ewen Montagu (Avon 640)

Paperback 787: Avon 640 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Man Who Never Was
Author: Ewen Montagu
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8

Avon640-1

Best things about this cover:

  • Exciting to imagine Ghost Major—riding the seas, thwarting the Nazis.
  • Less exciting when you find out "the man who never was" was actually an "anonymous corpse" that doesn't reanimate or nothin'.
  • This cover manages to be clever without being particularly interesting or exciting.


Avon640bc

Best things about this back cover:
  • More visual riffs on The Invisible Man theme.
  • Silly Germans—Tricks are for Victorious Americans!
  • "Operation Mincemeat" sounds like a WWII-themed Looney Tunes short featuring Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Page 123~

An attempt at an immediate thrust into the area of SALONICA and THRACE need not be reckoned with.

And that's how Major Martin avoided the clap.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

8 comments:

Enrique Nielsen said...

OPERATION MINCEMEAT (THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS)


In a new book you can read that the U-Boote, U-616 and U-565, transported the body of William Martin to La Spezia

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMUZrStsiv0

Jean said...

Hey, I read a book about that! Operation Mincemeat, by Ben MacIntyre.

A said...

This is an awesome cover. One of my favorites lately.

Pete said...

1955? It was public by then? I've seen two different documentaries about this in the past 10 years, each kind of implying that they're breaking the news.

Peter Ball said...

Aye, it was even released in film form back in '56. I remember watching it as a boy - er, more recently than that, I mean.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049471/

Lisa in Oz said...

I love the concept but am eye-twitchingly bothered that the uniform isn't centered on the cover. Does it wrap around onto the spine?

Anonymous said...

Um... that should be "tricks are for victorious Brits!"

Random White Guy said...

The big yellow blocks on the front cover annoy me. They interrupt the flow of the picture, in my all-important-never-to-be-questioned opinion.