Paperback 922: Scandal at High Chimneys / John Dickson Carr (Bantam A2155)

Paperback 922: Bantam A2155 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Scandal at High Chimneys
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Estimated value: $7-12

Best things about this cover:

• You know she's a vampire 'cause you can't see her butt crack in the mirror.
• Seriously, I love love love this cover. It's like she got caught going at it with the carriage driver, so she grabbed his uniform to protect herself from the prurient eyes of "sanctimonious Victorian London," only to re-eroticize the whole shebang by standing with her backside to the mirror like that. It's a metaphor for (alleged) Victorian prudishness—an injunction to cover up that only ends up foregrounding the whole naughty business.
• Is that a cane? It's ... quite long. And yes, that is what she said.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bats!
• World's creepiest author close-up: "Mmmm. Fly my pretty bats, fly."
• Ablest was I ere I saw Tselba.

Page 123~

"Bale up, grandpa! What's a yard o' white satin among friends?"

I'm begging you, pleading with you, to make "Bale up, grandpa!" the "Where's the beef?" of 2016.

~RP

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