Paperback 1145: Ten Plus One / Ed McBain (PermaBook M-4304)

Paperback 1145: PermaBook M-4304 (1st ptg., 1964)

Title: Ten Plus One

Author: Ed McBain

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 9.5/10

Value: $15-20

[Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, Sep. 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• [Original title: "Eleven"]
• Am I supposed to believe this guy has just been shot? It looks more like he just realized he forgot to pick up laundry detergent. "My wife's gonna kill me!" "Take it easy, Larry, take it easy!"
• This book is square and unread. Square unread—absolute collector bait. The only "wear" is edgewear. The spine is immaculate. I will pretty much buy *any* paperback published between 1940 and 1970 if it's in this kind of condition. Luckily, today, the cover happens to be supercool and unusual, and the author happens to be major.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "A tiny hole in the head"—or, if you're the guy on the cover, a big red blood splotch hovering about three feet above and to the right of your head.
• This is classic—some might even say "cliché"—thriller stuff. Buncha random shootings! What's behind it all? No one knows! Let's find out!
• Detective Steve Carella subsequently retired from the force, dropped the "a" from his last name, and had a fairly successful career as a comedic actor.

Page 123~

They had searched David Arthur Cohen's apartment from transom to trellis—the apartment boasted a small outdoor terrace overlooking a beautiful view of the River Harb—and found nothing at all incriminating. This did not mean that Cohen wasn't a very clever murderer who had hidden his rifle in an old garage somewhere. It simply meant that, for the time being, the detectives had found nothing in his apartment.

"From Trellis to Transom: The Searching of David Arthur Cohen's Apartment"—OK, it needs workshopping, but it's still a sight better than Ten Plus One. Also, do people really abbreviate "Harbor" like that? 

~RP

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Paperback 1144: Cassidy's Girl / David Goodis (Gold Medal 544)

Paperback 1144: Gold Medal 544 (2nd ptg, 1955)

Title: Cassidy's Girl

Author: David Goodis

Cover artist: Uncredited [Owen Kampen]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $40

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

Best things about this cover: 

• "Do these pants make my ass look fat?," Cassidy wondered aloud. Cassidy's girl grunted noncommitally, too absorbed in her blank book to care about her boyfriend's sullen insecurity.
• Everyone here is too rounded and ... globular to be sexy. This includes his shoulder blades and her hair. Her arm looks like it contains no bones. That cannot be a comfortable reading position.
• Did the pagans collide head on with life? Is that why they went extinct?

Best things about this back cover: 

• Black on dark green is hard to read. Also, the green makes it look like Cassidy's girl is lying on a billiards table. 
• Why bother to do a completely new sketch that is so close to the cover image? Maybe this was the original sketch that formed the basis for the cover painting. Still, they could've done something different here. Without the bed for context, she just looks like she's taken an awkward fall. On a billiards table.
• "Powerful, salty, elemental." Like mussels, or Cassidy's armpit after a night of fighting and drinking and loving.

Page 123~

    There was the sound of a chair scraping. Cassidy opened his eyes and saw Spann rising and Pauline rising also. Spann aimed the heel of his palm at Pauline's face and Pauline leaned far back to get away, then came in very fast to collect a handful of Spann's hair. She pulled hard, and Spann opened his mouth wide and screamed without making a sound.

Oh, pagan. I get it now. (I don't get it)

~RP

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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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Paperback 1137: Tormented Bride / Myron Kosloff (First Niter 218)

Paperback 1137: First Niter FN 218 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Tormented Bride

Author: Myron Kosloff

Cover artist: [Gene Bilbrew]

Condition: 9/10

Value: $100

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• OK, we got us a good one here.
• I adore the middle-aged middle school teacher whose spectacles are about to pop off her face. She's so excited about this tight-skirted, belted-coated spectacle of a woman that she's grabbing Betty's arm to make sure she sees. Betty has definitely seen.
• Are the ladies at the bar? Behind the bar? The stools are on this side, but they're on the other side. And the bartender appears to be on the same side they are. At least I think dough-faced hyena man is the bartender. He's got epaulets, which says "uniform," which says "maybe he works here." Anyway, the layout of this bar is all kinds of off.
• Actually, the closer you look, the more things are bizarrely, creepily off. What is our strutting lady doing with her left foot. It's landing at a right angle to her direction, which basically ensures that ankle breakage awaits her in the near future. And those heels. Jeeeeezus. No human could walk in those. She's fully on tip toe and the heel is still on the floor.
• Then there's the inexplicable side of the booth (?!), which creates a huge arced swath of white on this cover—a shit-ton of negative space that adds nothing to the composition and bears no resemblance to anything you'd find in reality. Speaking of "you'd never find it in reality," that blue-faced dude in the bottom-left. That's a lot of face for a seemingly marginal dude. Definitely creeps up the joint even further.
• I think the strutting lady and the bartender have just come from the first and possibly last ever meeting of the "World's Smallest Necktie" club. He's laughing because his necktie was narrower by 3mm. Better luck next time, Tormented Bride!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh great, as if things weren't disturbing enough, we're just leading with RAPE
• Thank you, Lord, for granting unto us the phrase "whirlpool of perversia." Your magnanimity is truly overwhelming.
• "Excuse me, can you tell me which way to perversia? ... Just turn left at the light? Great. And do you know if they have a whirlpool there? ... Yes? Excellent." 
• Tracy Gilbert, leather-clad dominatrix. Leather! Lesbians! BDSM! Minuscule neckwear! Is there any kink this book doesn't have?? 
• Why would you try to "escape" the "bonds of lesbianism" with "boyish Olive Thurston"? Who gave you that advice?
• And it all ends in "pie" because of course it does.
• "Twilight World!" My favorite queer codeword is back with a leather-clad vengeance!

Page 123~

    "I—do you want me to do something?"

    He caught his breath. "Like what?"

    She hesitated. Then: "You know. Relieve you."

!?

~RP

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Paperback 1136: Angelina / Irving Lazar (Falcon Books FB-1006)

Paperback 1136: Falcon Books FB-1006 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Angelina

Author: Irving Lazar    

Cover artist: Photo cover

Condition: 9.5/10

Value: $ absolutely no idea

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Aubrey Plaza, in a role that will embarrass you!
• Photographer: "OK, Jack, grab her shoulder ... now hide your face behind her head, but make sure we get a real nice shot of your ear ... that's it."
• Y'all there is so much wrong / off / weird about this book. To wit:
•     "Irving Lazar"!?!?! Probably a pen name, but a very weird pen name to have, considering it's also the name of a very very famous talent agent, Irving "Swifty" Lazar (1907-93). There is no mention of any books by Irving Lazar on his wikipedia page except for his autobiography.
•     This books looks brand new. 61 years old and it looks like it was just pulled off the shelf. No reading crease whatsoever. So fresh that it feels fake. Speaking of which...
•     What the hell is Falcon Books?!? Does anyone else own a book put out by this imprint? There's an earlier Falcon Books imprint (also sleaze, but digest size, and from the early '50s), but what about this more modern, '60s sleaze imprint? I ask because...
•     The publication page of this books reads: "An original Nite-Time Book." "Copyright 1964 by Nite-Time Books." Now Nite-Time Books is a recognizable sleaze publisher (I own one: Canary's Combo, also 1964). But why would it say Falcon Books on the outside (specifically, on the spine), when it is (as its publication page states) a Nite-Time Book?? There needs to be a central clearinghouse for all vintage paperback information! Somewhere where I can look up literally any book and bam, there's all the pub info, the author / photographer credits, the crazy back stories, etc. Make it so, lord (don't make me make it myself!)

Best things about this back cover: 

• Another ear! Is there a male ear fetish thing I don't know about DON'T ANSWER
• Oh, god, another one of these incoherent jobs. A gasp came from deep in my throat when I tried to read that first sentence.
• "Unzippering?" Did he remove the entire zipper mechanism from his pants? Seems extreme.
• "Without a word, her eyes still closed Ricky rolled her blue silk panties down her long legs..." Commas! Please, someone, send commas!
• The way I laughed at "flanks"! LOL. "Easy, there, girl ... good horse."
• "Now, George Please ... now." I would like to meet this George Please. And tell him to run.

Page 123~ (actually p. 23; p. 123 was impossibly boring)

Angelina felt Linda's slim fingered hand on her still wet breasts, one of Linda's thin legs lay between Angelina's fleshier thighs. Solwly (sic!!!) Linda's hands began to caress the breasts, her caresses getting firmer and firmer as both their passions mounted, until finally Linda's hands were moving with a kneading intensity.

Fingered hands and still breasts. She sounds ideal. Yes, give me a girl with a full complement of fingers and breasts that don't move, that's the girl for me! 

~RP

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Paperback 1135: The Twilight Lust / Val Arden (Royal Line 105)

Paperback 1135: Royal Line 105 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Twilight Lust

Author: Val Arden

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $25

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Adults Only may see my nipples. Yes, I'm serious, those are the rules. I'm crossing my arms defiantly, so you know that I am serious."
• I want one of you to dress as This Lady for Halloween, insane wig, chainmail underwear, "Adults Only" sign and all. Dying decorative houseplant optional.
• "Twilight" is code for gay/lesbian/queer. Always. Such a great code word. My favorite cover copy word, right up there with "frank" (as euphemism for "dirty")
• There should be more condition ratings for old paperbacks than just Good, Very Good, Fine, etc. There needs to be a word that gets to the specific quality of a book like this, which is unread, square, perfect, but also aged to hell and scuffed and notched by a saw at the top, maybe sun damaged. It's like "Excellent/Poor"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow. Wow. . . yeah, wow.
• Who can forget the first stirrings of "girhood?" Not me, that's for sure.
• "Satisfaction in treir seeking." "Treir seeking" was a lesbian spiritual/sexual practice. No one remembers what it was anymore. This book is the only record of its existence. Did they ever find the treir they were seeking? You'll have to get your own copy to find out. 
• It's like someone found a "rejected cover copy" text-file dump and just filed it as final copy. Like, on a dare. "Surely an editor will clean this up." And yet here we are. 
• Somehow the most disturbing thing to me about this back cover is how horribly off-center the copy is. That, and the grime. Oh, and the sad, misaligned final word. Poor "body."

Page 123~

She saw the irritation darkening his face and knew his pride had risen to overrun them. He could not let himself be concerned. He had never come to her with questions. Only with orders. And, certainly, he wasn't about to start now. Especially not now. Finish.

That first sentence starts out great ("She saw the irritation darkening his face") and then just falls off a cliff and never stops falling. This paragraph is like "Notes Toward a Paragraph." I can't stop laughing at "Finish." It's like an annotation or an editor's note that was never supposed to make it to print. Like, "Remember to come back and finish this paragraph because dear lord it is a mess."

~RP

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Paperback 1134: Call Boy / Tony Calvin (Ember Books EB 907)

Paperback 1134: Ember Books EB 907 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Call Boy

Author: Tony Calvin (pseud. of Thomas P. Ramirez)

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 9.5/10

Value: $40

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Hi, I know you only called for a single boy, but I brought back-up, just in case. We don't have nipples, I hope that's OK. What we lack in nipples, we make up for in sheer Wonder-Twin enthusiasm, I promise!"
• The cover copy wants me to think this is all very tawdry, but look at how happy they look. It almost seems wholesome, honestly.
• I wish I could properly explain how immaculate this book is. Obviously unread, bright as the sun, with only some superficial edgewear between it and a perfect 10 condition rating.
• Love her modesty hair, and modesty cash, but I wouldn't look too hard at the cash if I were you. It's like some early version of A.I. made it. Wonky and wrong in every way. Looks like it was issued by the country of "Reptilia"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ember Books ... is yet another imprint in what is clearly a sleaze empire of the '60s. Nightstand Books, Ember Library, Companion Books, Sundown Reader, and on and on, there's a uniformity to the size and color scheme and artwork and ludicrousness, but it's this back cover copy that really feels the same across imprints—again, it's as if some early version of A.I. was asked to write cover copy for a '60s sleaze paperback and it just churned out a bunch of words that individually feel right ("strange," "twisted," "secret," "stud-mistress," "lust," "flesh," "bondage," "shame," "sin," etc.), but together add up to empty (and particularly unsexy) nonsense.
• I don't see anything like "shame" or "degradation" on the front cover. What I see is a mostly naked sleepover party. With Monopoly money.
• The wages of sin!? The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Whereas the Wages of Fear is a classic 1953 thriller by the great French director Henri-Georges Clouzot, which was the basis for William Friedkin's fantastic Sorcerer (1977).

Page 123~

His surprise, as he opened the door to find the portly, medium-tall man standing there, left him totally speechless for at least thirty seconds. The doorknob seemingly froze in his fingers. This must be some kind of a joke. A man? Certainly Odile doesn't expect me to ... There's a damn limit, after all.

First: is there a limit, Stark Campion? Is there? I guess we'll see. 

Second: This paragraph works a lot better if you think of "the doorknob" as, well, a metaphor

~RP

P.S. I had to turn comments moderation on because of creeps. Please feel free to comment (I love hearing from people who love these books the way I do), but just know that publication of your comment will be delayed for a bit. And if your comments are Trumpist or homophobic or in any way hateful, they're never getting through. Please find another blog to pollute. Thank you!

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Paperback 1133: Seduction Campaign / Bruce Shelly (Merit Books 681)

Paperback 1133: Merit Books 681 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Seduction Campaign

Author: Bruce Shelly

Cover artist: photo (?)

Condition: 8/10    

Value: $40

[newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Help me, Seduction Campaign girl! Your nymphomania is my only hope! (this is a Star Wars reference)
• For a really effective seduction, try taking the Chinese lantern or birdhouse or whatever that is away from your face
• Not a fan of photo covers, esp. when the photos seem to have been weirdly artificially colored (her Ronald McDonald hair color is implausible). But I actually really love her sassy, casual get-up. I guess the unbuttoned top button of the pants is supposed to be part of the seduction campaign? I just assume she ate a little too much at breakfast. 
• I like to think that she's in a western, and signaling to some gunslinger in the road, "Four..." Four what, I don't know. Maybe pancakes she had at breakfast?

Best things about this back cover: 

• As seduction campaigns go, this one seems pretty low-budget. SEDUCTION CAMPAIGN feels less like cover copy and more like a placeholder. It's like "future site of Seduction Campaign" or "Seduction Campaign, Coming 1963"
• "You ever think about anything else besides bed?" "Well, sure. There's, uh, seduction. Oh, and campaigning. Ronald McDonald. Bralessness. Lots of things."
• "Like to see?" is a weird line. "Wanna see?" tracks, but "Like to see?" sounds like she's threatening to put his eyes out. "Like to see? Then you better stop bugging me pal. Be a shame if anything happened to them peepers of yours."

Page 123~

    "Here's some pants, Davey." It was Bunny. All dressed and standing demurely in the living room. "Nice of you to call on us, Mrs. Kelly. It was time for us to get up anyway."

    Bunny was back in character. She flounced around Janet and handed me my slacks. "Don't mind us, Davey," she said. 

    "Oh, no!" said Janet. "Don't mind us at all!" She stalked into the living room and I followed just as soon as I was trousered.

This is basically an episode of “Three's Company.” Two girls and a guy. A landlady (probably). I mean, there's even a character named "Janet." 🎶"Come and knock on our door / Nymphomania reigns / Where the flouncing is hers and hers and his, / It's the Seduction Campaign!"🎶

~RP

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Paperback 1132: Mercedes / Carl Demarco (Midwood 33-714)

 Paperback 1132: Midwood 33-714 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Mercedes

Author: Carl Demarco

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $11

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• The long-awaited sequel to Hyundai.
• So ... she discovered that there was a staircase as well as an elevator? Exciting.
• I wish she filled more of the frame—so much more of the frame that the dope who's looking at her got pushed right out. There is a long tradition of "cardboard-cutout dude who is there only to ogle the hot woman" in paperback art, but this guy may be the cardboard-cutoutiest. She's so bored by him that she's turned to us for help.
• Her hair is perfect. The rest of her is pretty good too. I know I'm meant to look at her ass, but I kinda wish I could see the whole dress.
• I would lose my fucking mind if I spent more than three minutes in a room this color. So relentlessly This Color.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Just a B&W version of the cover?? The look and tone of both the art and the cover copy are so weary and half-hearted that I feel like that final line should read "[Sigh] Yet Another Midwood Original (We're Out Of Ideas)"
• I keep looking at her right hand to see if it has the correct number of fingers. There's something slightly ... mangled about it.
• "Penetrating"? OK, easy there, copy guy.
• "With whom"? Well, la-di-dah, copy guy.

Page 123~

    With a strange urgency, she passed her hands over her body—nude beneath the sheets—as if to reassure herself that she was all there, intact [!], that she hadn't left a part of herself with the sensuous Suzanne!

"My left kneecap ... Where's My Left Kneecap!? Curse your lesbian witchery, Suzanne!"

~RP

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Paperback 1131: The Company She Keeps / Mary McCarthy (Dell 824)

Paperback 1131: Dell 824 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Company She Keeps

Author: Mary McCarthy

Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Condition: 7/10

Value: $10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• I took one look at this and said "Maguire" so fast, I surprised even myself. Utter certainty. The guy had a style, and that style was Quintessential GGA (Great Girl Art). Robert McGinnis has probably the most recognizable style of all paperback cover artists, but for me, Bob Maguire is undefeated. Best of the best. He doesn't even have a lot of room to do his magic here, and yet that face, those lips, those (perfect) hands—unmistakable.
• Every time I look at this cover—every single time—I see an empty coupe glass in her right hand. And then I see that it's just an illusion created by the corner of the train (?) window behind her—an illusion reinforced by the bottle of booze on the ledge behind her.
• Just put some a cigarette, some booze, and a world-weary dame on your cover and I am happy. If she's on a train, even better.
• I love how paperbacks sexed up everything by the mid-50s, even "literary" fiction like this. Mary McCarthy is not exactly slinging sleaze, but there's no reason she can't look like she is. There are very few books that could be improved, looks-wise, by The Maguire Treatment.

Best things about this back cover: 

• She's like the antithesis of the woman on the cover, all brightness and smiles. She seems lovely, but I yearn for the down-and-outness of the flip side of this book.
• "Writes like a man"—ugh, these midcentury critics who are still startled to find a woman writer who is good and also frank about sex. Speaking of frank ...
• "Frank!" My favorite cover copy adjective. Feels like it's been a long time since I've seen "frank." I have a "Frank" tag for this blog and everything. Welcome back, old friend. I love "frank" because it's like the book's winking at you, like "psst ... it's dirty, c'mon, read it! You know you wanna..."

Page 123~

He made you think of Boy Scouts and starting a fire without matches and Wesley Barry and skinning the cat and Our Gang comedies and Huckleberry Finn. If he had ever been hard up, he could have been a photographic model, and one could have seen his pleasant, vaguely troubled face more often in The Saturday Evening Post than in Esquire. He might have done well as the young man who is worried about his life insurance, the young man who is worried about dandruff, the young man whose shirts won't fit him, the young man who looks up happily from his plate of Crunchies, saying, "Gee, honey, I didn't know breakfast food could taste so good!"

Frankly, this is great. It goes on like this (the chapter is called "Portrait of the Intellectual as a Yale Man"), and it doesn't get worse. I've never read McCarthy before, but I might have to give her a try.

~RP

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Paperback 1130: Wild Spree / Jay Davis (Scorpion Books 101)

Paperback 1130: Scorpion Books 101 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Wild Spree

Author: Jay Davis

Cover artist: Gus Albet

Condition: 9/10 (yeah, it's got that sticker (38¢!!) ... sigh ... but otherwise ... mwah)

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• L.A. pilates classes go hard.
• It's been two weeks since my last post! But vacation time is over! Let sleaze time commence!
• Bisexual visibility! You don't see "bisexuality" mentioned explicitly very often, but this one's got it right in the tagline on the teaser page, before the title page: "HER BISEXUAL ROOMMATE SEDUCED HER!" And sure, enough, page 1, they get right to it. "Juanita's lips found Susan's breasts." Not hard to do. Turns out they weren't exactly hiding.

• My friend Doug Peterson frequently brings me smutty paperbacks whenever we happen to see each other, and this time, when we met at the Huntington Museum near Pasadena, he did not disappoint. I've got something like a dozen gems for you in the coming weeks, starting with this top-shelf stuff.
• Scorpion Books ("... the book with a sting!")—this imprint is new to my collection (there appear to have been something like 8 Scorpion Books total (this is 101 and I can find them numbered only as high as 108)).

Best things about this back cover: 

• Look, if you're gonna be lesbian, I think you gotta go "all out." No part-time lesbians, no half-ass lesbians. Just ... all out. Like Maxine. Maxine gets it.
• OK where the fuck are we here? Like, in physical space, where are we? I just realized that this is a wraparound cover. Usually, wraparound covers are kinda ostentatious about the fact that they're wraparounds, so you get this cool continuous-picture effect as you turn the book over. But this ... this is some kind of grimy shack with no electricity. The folks on the front seem very well lit, but over here, in front of this framed picture of, I'm gonna say, garbage, with a shabby day bed that features an old wooden barrel for a pillow, there is no light. Only sadness. 
• One thing I love about this book is the amount of credit the artist is getting. There is a painting within the painting, which the actual artist (of the entire cover) has signed ("ALBET"), and somebody made sure that signature stayed visible and unobscured. Then you open the book up and the artist doesn't just get a credit—he gets a whole damn page! More books should treat their cover artists like this! As a collector, it absolutely sucks how hard-to-impossible it is to track down a simple artist credit when the book doesn't simply provide it. But here: hey, hey, hey, it's Gusssssss Albet!

Page 123~

    Without thinking, without awareness, she walked to the door, opened it, and then gasped in surprise to find Maxine Hensen standing there. 

"Somebody order an all-out lesbian?" Maxine chortled suggestively. Susan gasped, dropped to her knees, and threw her blue blouse over her head as the night exploded in a wild spree of desperate bisexual passions. Amen.

~RP

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Paperback 1129: The Postman Always Rings Twice / James M. Cain (Pocket Books 443)

 Paperback 1129: Pocket Books 443 (11th ptg., 1953)

Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice

Author: James M. Cain

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

Best things about this cover: 

• Love their faces! "Fraaank ... you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Oh yeah, baby, it's murder city for hubby there. I got a foolproof plan..."
• This cover really gets across the idea that her husband is dragging her down. Physically, literally down. He's like a horny aging hell-imp come to besmirch the pure white maiden (that white is about to become superironic). Anyway, big diagonal energy in this one (from the glass on the table through the handsy Greek up through Miss Innocent and smack into Frank's cigarette-stuffed mug).
• Look at Frank there. He's like a tree. Just a straight up-and-down piece of solid wood. Actually, he seems to be emerging from a block of granite. He's got meaty hands, strangler's hands. But that t-shirt ... that's kinda jaunty. What is that, mint green? Snazzy.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Meh, this book's trying too hard to be highbrow. Quotes from Important Sources and whatnot. Where's my florid, sleazy cover copy!? Do you think I really care what [squints] Herbert Bayard Swope has to say? I do not.
• I can't believe no one calls this story "Frank," as it literally has a "Frank" in it.
• What is "the metal of an automatic?" Is he trying to say "gun?" The "bullets?" Which part of the automatic isn't metal? And can you really not lay a gun down? Sorry, Saturday Review of Literature, you're not up to the task here. Maybe go back to reviewing Louis Bromfield or John P. Marquand or whatever.

Page 123~ (actually, p. 23 ... there's only 121 pages total in this thing!)

    "Even if we had gone through with it they would have guessed it. They always guess it. They guess it anyway, just from habit. Because look how quick that cop knew something was wrong. That's what makes my blood run cold. Soon as he saw me standing there he knew it. If he could tumble to it all that easy, how much chance would we have had if the Greek had died?"

    "I guess I'm not really a hell cat, Frank."

It's a sad day when a girl has to give up on her childhood dreams of being a hell cat. But we all have to grow up sometime, I guess. 

~RP

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Paperback 1128: Walls of Gold / Kathleen Norris (Pocket Books 488)

Paperback 1128: Pocket Books 488 (1st ptg., 1948)

Title: Walls of Gold

Author: Kathleen Norris

Cover artist: Earl Cordrey

Condition: 5/10

Value: $4-5

Best things about this cover: 

• She liked to make every new lover smell the blood of his predecessor. "How did you get his bl-?" "Shut up and smell, Steve. Then help me scrape the words off these walls of gold."
• I thought there was a speck of dirt on her right shoulder but it won't come off so maybe it's a mole?
• She married for position. And that's how she became left tackle for the Chicago Bears.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "... an elderly widower who gave her all the good things of life"—well, apparently not all the good things
• Three hypothetical questions on one back cover. That's asking (literally) a lot of the reader
• Wait, the rich guy is named "Ritchie?" I can't wait to meet Jimmy's other love interests, architect Sam Houseman and butcher Steve Mietz

Page 123~

Jimmy, who had to write all the notes of thanks, observed that some day they would build a beautiful home somewhere and put their new things into it. But Gordon was a little dubious about that. 

Jimmy, who could brook no dubiousness, quickly slit her new husband's throat, cleaned up the blood with a handkerchief, and then descended the staircase to show Steve what she'd done.

~RP

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Paperback 1127: Golden Tramp / Daoma Winston (Beacon B 272)

 Paperback 1127: Beacon B 272 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Golden Tramp

Author: Daoma Winston

Cover artist: Uncredited [Harry Barton]

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Her name is Gay? Bit on the nose, don't you think? I mean ... whither subtlety?
• It's like she's eating his face with her neck. Some kind of weird reverse vampire.
• "Your head feels so good, Steve!" "Mmmfrphywtuh"
• There's something oddly, bizarrely, unexpectedly charming about the pink stripes on the pillow.
• I approvingly acknowledge the hint (the barest hint) of garter hook.
• I love the cover copy's anguished "WHY?" "Why oh why won't she give up this endless orgy of the flesh and join the endless orgy of the mind!?"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ransom note font, wtf?
• OMG there really is a "Steve" in this thing. Nailed it!
• "Maybe it was Tom who turned Gay from men." So ... he turned Gay ... gay? Seriously, the protagonist's name is not helping you, Daoma.
• I'm not sure "tete-a-tetes" means what you think it does, Daoma. Unless ... "tete" ("head") is a euphemism for some other body parts that they're putting ... together ...
• Holy shit, plot twist! Peter covets Jonathan!? Who the fuck is Jonathan? You can't just drop Peter's queerness *and* a new character into the very last sentence. I don't even care about Gay anymore. I need to know about Peter and Jonathan! I hope they're happy (but since they're gay in a 1950s paperback, safe bet is that they are probably not, in fact, happy).

Page 123~

"Well, you know what he did? Went off and married one of those drive-in girls in the shiny shirts, and dimpled knees showing. And the funniest thing happened. It turned out she's some kind of an heiress or something. Couldn't have happened at a better time, or to a nicer guy."

Man, it's like Daoma Winston's got a barreful of premises for novels and she's just gonna dump them all into one book. Now I need to know about the heiress who is also somehow a dimple-kneed shiny-shirted drive-in girl ... which is apparently a type? I want to live inside a late '50s Beacon paperback, if just for a day. It sounds wild.

~RP

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