Paperback 1143: Six Times Death / William Irish (Popular Library 137)

Paperback 1143: Popular Library 137 (PBO 1948)

Title: Six Times Death

Author: William Irish (pseud. of Cornell Woolrich)

Cover artist: Uncredited [would guess H. Lawrence Hoffman, but that's a guess]

Condition: 7/10 

Value: $50

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA, Aug. 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• Such a weird cover. Looks more like an animation still than a typical paperback cover painting. I love the little firemen silhouettes. At least I think they're firemen. They're a little ominous. Kinda look like cops who've shown up to a house in the middle of the night to fill it full of lead (those hoses shoot awfully straight)
• Why does the fire look like a goddess who is about to snack on some hapless mortals?
• That blurb is the kind of blurb you write when you didn't read the book. "These are definitely [flips through book] short stories, which should please the kind of people who like that sort of thing"—NEW YORK TIMES
• Another great Cornell Woolrich paperback that I picked up for a (relative) song this summer. It contains the story "Marihuana," which, as a stand-alone paperback (Dell 10c), is one of the most iconic vintage paperbacks there is.

And today's back cover ...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Popular Library, again with the unindented paragraphs (see Paperback 1142). How did anyone tolerate this layout? It should've driven any copywriter or book designer crazy.
• "... the unbearable horror [that] can color a man's life, the sheer tragedy of fate's perversity, the macabre attraction of evil"—sounds like Being Alive in 2025!
• "... the futility of striving against a malevolent destiny" is pure noir stuff. The best laid plans go pffft. So much for heroism or any kind of meaningful human agency. Some things are just beyond you. It's Chinatown, as they say.

Page 123~ 

[from "Marihuana"]

    She only had one more dodge left. One more, and then the struggle for life was out of her. "Our song. Wait! I have it here—" She floundered across to a turntable, began shuffling through records with a furtive haste. One dropped, broke; another, a third; she didn't even stop to look at them. 

    She found one, fitted it on, set the needle arm. Then she turned to face him, at last gasp. Already more dead than alive. He had already killed her, all but her body. Life wasn't worth this price, anyway.

Turgid with melodrama, bordering on the comical there at the end, though I really like the bit with the records breaking. Propulsive prose. Vivid.

~RP

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Paperback 1142: Strangler's Serenade / William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)

Paperback 1142: Popular Library 431 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Strangler's Serenade

Author: William Irish (pseud. of Cornell Woolrich)

Cover artist: Rudolph Belarski

Condition: 6-7/10

Value: $35

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara CA, Aug. 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• The lingerie repo man will not be stopped
• She'd probably run faster without the lingerie. That's like 90 pounds of lingerie, what the hell?
• "The Killer Was Crazy—About Women"— yeah, that's ... generally how it works? What part of that is a "twist?" Is this a book about the romantic life of a man who just happens to be a serial killer on the side? "I'm used to chasing victims, but chasing dames, that's a whole other racket, brother, let me tell you!"
• The Killer Was Tired of Running Up Staircases
• Classic "Fear Hand"—love it.
• A midcentury William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) paperback with a dynamic Rudolph Belarski cover!? It's not in the greatest condition, but I'd've bought it in any condition short of falling apart. Its vibe is pure.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The girl was a PHILOSOPHY MAJOR!
• Wow, this back cover story (with its incredibly ugly non-indented paragraphs) feels miles away from whatever was going on on the front cover. The chaser has become the chasee!
• "Champ Prescott," LOL, prep school much?

Page 123~

Though there was agony expressed in the posture, there was also the grace and grandeur of finality. The mouth, as they uncovered it, would never say foolish, child-like things again; it had grown up into death. It was the equal now of the mouths of Aristotle and Spinoza.

Sir, this is a suspense novel. You can take that straining after profundity back to your high school English teacher, mkay? (Woolrich could really turn the prose up to "Purple" when he wanted to)

~RP

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Paperback 1141: Corruption City / Horace McCoy (Dell First Edition A188)

Paperback 1141: Dell First Edition A188 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Corruption City

Author: Horace McCoy

Cover artist: photo

Condition: 7/10

Value: $20

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA, August 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Take me down to Corruption City / Where the bricks look fake and the hoods ain't pretty..."
• She's got good "Fear Hand"; feels like I haven't seen a good "Fear Hand" in a while.
• This is the kind of photo shoot I wish I'd been present at. It's a pretty complicated pose. I wonder how long she had to hold it. Maybe they actually put the brick background on the floor and shot it that way. There's not a ton of visual interest here, but they make good use of what they've got. The hood is truly shadowy—all hat, no face—the bricks really gleam, and there enough of her (face, hand) to convey terror effectively. Plus.
• This is a first edition Horace McCoy, so assuming it held together and wasn't astronomically priced (check, check) I was gonna buy it no matter what it looked like.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Belts, anyone? 
• Look, I'm no beltologist, but these look hideous.
• "The finest long-stretch elastic ever used in belt-making"! Wow, this I gotta* see! (*do not care to)
• This is the second book in my collection (so far) with this particular belt ad on the back. I don't own any other books with totally un-book-related ads on the back. I guess some guy at Dell First Editions had a bright idea for how to make better use of the back covers ... and then someone higher up was like "fire Belt Boy" and that was that (seriously, this book is numbered A188, the other book I own with this back cover is A185 ... if you told me this belt ad "concept" lasted for only four books, I would have no problem believing you)

Page 123~

"We know how you feel about this, John," Fogel said. "We also know how Nemo Crispi'll feel when he finds out you've pulled off the case."

I'm staring at "Nemo Crispi'll" with a kind of awe. I mean, Nemo Crispi is a Hall of Fame name on its own, but you do that contraction bit there with the apostrophe "L"s at the end and wow. That's hapax legomenon territory.

~RP

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Paperback 1140: Undress Rehearsal / John Carver (Softcover Library 95265)

Paperback 1140: Softcover Library 95265 (1st ptg, late '60s to 1970)

Title: Undress Rehearsal

Author: John Carver

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10    

Value: $12

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Seems pretty bored for someone at an orgy. "What an orgy!" "Meh, it's OK." Maybe that wicker chair seat just isn't that comfortable to sit in naked.
• What is she holding? A leaf? A shoe? A feather? I also have a follow-up question. Namely, "Why?"
• Those thigh-high black leather fetish boots are shiny and spectacular. I just wish she seemed to be getting any joy from them.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The backs of sleaze paperbacks fall into two categories: brief, enigmatic, typo-ridden prose poems that seem to have been translated hastily from some lost Central European language; or, treatises.
• I took one look at the name "Roz" and thought, "oh that's definitely the requisite lesbian." I was close. 
• "Adults could make love with youngsters"—did that *ever* sound good? "Youngsters?" It's better than "children," I guess, but only barely.

Page 123~

"Filthy. It is even more disgusting in the flesh. A degenerate, characterless story containing the grossest invitations to moral disintegration. I object—and I shall go on objecting."

There's your back cover blurb right there. Just ascribe it to some the head of some fictional Public Morals Org. and you're in business! 

~RP

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Paperback 1139: Impervious to Pain / David Malcolm (Venus Library V-1070-T)

Paperback 1139: Venus Library V-1070-T (PBO, 1972)

Title: Impervious to Pain

Author: David Malcolm

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• What's the opposite of "sans serif"?
• I can feel that bed cover, as well as those curtains, and it's not pleasant. I'm starting to itch.
• I cannot tell a lie, that is fantastic underwear. Not the boring nightgown—the orange paisleyesque panties. This cover is dead without them. Even the cat o' nine tails wouldn't be able to save it from the overwhelming motel beige.
• The subtitle of this book is "Case Studies in Sado-masochism." Improbably, it looks virtually unread.

Best things about this back cover: 

• So much text, much of it deeply troubling. For instance, "slave" and "salve" on the same back cover? My brain hates it. And "moist"!? Worse, "Moist, most," one right after the other. It's like this back cover copy is running its fingernails down the blackboard of my mind.
• This book runs somewhat outside my normal collecting time frame parameters (i.e. it's post-1970), and it is (therefore?) way more explicit, both inside and out, than most of the "sleaze" books I own. 
• "Quiver" twice!? I'm telling you: nails + chalkboard.
• "Her moist, most sensitive parts" and "his naked masculinity" are somehow both much sillier and much dirtier-sounding than their more straightforward, less euphemistic counterparts. 

Page 123~

Then she flipped her long almost air-tight skirt over her head, saying, "And if you have trouble breathing down there, I'll like that, too."

Never mind the seemingly impossible logistics of "flipping" an "air-tight skirt" over your head, this is a great line. A colorful detail. A fantastic bit of dialogue. I legitimately laughed out loud.

~RP

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Paperback 1138: Woman Trap / John Davidson (Uptown Books 705)

Paperback 1138: Uptown Books 705 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Woman Trap

Author: John Davidson (pseud. of Thomas Nuetzel)

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 6/10

Value: $8-10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• "She was the kind of creature that convulsed into a sea of rippling heated waves..." Oh that kind of creature. I thought she might be one of those creatures that hibernates, or maybe comes crawling out of my basement every once in a while. Thanks for clarifying.
• When my main thought about a sleaze paperback cover is, "hey, that's a pretty nice quilt," then I'd say it's lacking ... something.
• "OK, we're gonna cover you with this tarp and then you just ... do weird things with your hand ... OK, now try to look happy ... no, not hungry, happy ... eh, good enough"

Best things about this back cover: 

• All the women *I*'ve had??? What do you know? Is this some kind of Candid Camera / This is Your Life deal? If so, pass.
• The use of the second person here ("you") is so weird, not least because it drops out halfway through the blurb. ("'Waiting for his touch'?? Whose touch? Who the hell is this guy?")
• I won't bore you by recounting the grammatical atrocities in this blurb. I'll just say that somehow the most dispiriting of these, to me, is "laying there" (it's lying!!! lying lying lying!)

Page 123~

    Without knowing that he had done it, Carlton found himself walking up the pathway toward the house which Wanda Stevens was staying in. He didn't want to see her, really, but his feet had moved in the direction and he found himself standing before the door, almost afraid to open it.

    Then sighing, deeply, he reaching [sic!] out his hand and rang the bell.

Then sighing, deeply, I wondering how anything so poorly proofread ever made it to print. Also, why is he "almost afraid to open" the door when in fact, he can't open it, as it's clearly not his house. If it were, he wouldn't need to ring the bell in the very next sentence. He's not afraid to open the door—he's afraid to ring the bell. Just say that. Why Can't You Just Say That!?!?

~RP

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