Paperback 1151: The Body in the Library / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 341)

Paperback 1151: Pocket Books 341 (3rd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Body in the Library

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8.5/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• People say she's crazy, she's got diamonds on the ... what is that, the lap of her dress?
• The sparkly bits are actually gorgeous, though this poor woman has fallen in a rather unbecoming way. More abstract shape than human form. The absolutely ridiculous wig-hair is not helping (if you look at the image upside-down, it looks even sillier, like her wig is sliding back off her scalp)
• Condition on this book is fantastic. Slight spine lean, and maybe a little spine fading, but otherwise the book is bright. Immaculate. The perma-gloss is intact and everything.

Best things about this back cover: 

• If the cover is making you a little seasick because everything's a little ... tilty, that's because of a printing anomaly. Sometimes with early paperbacks the printing, particularly on covers, is not perfectly square or centered. I find it charming. 
• "Hearthrug" is a weird-looking word. Like three words fighting to be the main word and all of them somehow losing.
• I don't know what color that "backless evening dress" is on the cover, but it ain't white.
• I love the idea that a dead body on a hearthrug looks merely "incongruous" in the Colonel's library. "Her corpse clashes with the escritoire. Oh, no, this won't do at all."

Page 123~

    Florence looked uneasily at Miss Marple. Her eyes looked rather like those of one of her father's calves.

    Miss Marple said, "Sit down, Florence."

~RP

Oh my god is Miss Marple gonna slaughter her. "We were supposed to have veal for dinner this evening, Florence, but your father has no more calves available. Which brings us to the question of why I've brought you here..."

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Paperback 1150: The Hollow / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 485)

Paperback 1150: Pocket Books 485 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Hollow

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

[Still more Agatha Christie from this summer, Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• She criticized his taste in statuary once too often!
• She criticized his Brylcrem obsession once too often!
• "Hold still, darling, while I smother you in THE HOLLOW of my neck"
• Man they are really doing battle for "worst hair."
• Huh. It doesn't look like he "inspires dangerous passion" so much as he "lavishes unwanted attention on women such that they are inspired to drive knitting needles into his neck."
• What are those things in her hand, anyway? I honestly have no guess. Part knitting needles part riding crop part busted umbrella. Whatever it is, I assume she's about to plant it right in his cherubic face.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Most accusations "for all to hear" are not "whispered," in my admittedly limited experience of guys dying near swimming pools.
• This is a pretty weak teaser. Also, a truly unnecessary explanation of what Hercule Poirot is going to do. "Oh, is he going to ask questions and gain insight into the character of suspects!? How novel!"
• I'm no legal scholar, but I'm pretty sure that a detective cannot "convict the guilty one."

Page 123~

"Oh, Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell, "about those eggs. I meant to write the date in pencil on them as usual. Will you ask Mrs. Medway to see to it?"

This book is truly committed to insane names. Gerda and Gudgeon and Angkatell, and then of course there's Henrietta: "Henrietta Savernake [!] — a talented sculptress who sometimes cheats at cards" (per the "Cast of Characters"). As long as one of them writes the damn date on the damn eggs, I'm sure everything will be fine.

~RP

P.S. sorry for the two-week hiatus. Surgery + a cold + a threefold increase in teaching responsibilities really put me back on my heels. But I'm back at it now, 2-3x week for the foreseeable future.

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