Paperback 1168: The Red Right Hand / Joel Townsley Rogers (Pocket Books 385)

Paperback 1168: Pocket Books 385 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Red Right Hand

Author: Joel Townsley

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $4-5

Best things about this cover: 

• The "thumb" ... it ... it just ... look, that's not a thumb, is what I'm saying. Look at it in total isolation. It is astonishingly, in every way, not a thumb. The more you look, the more obscene it gets.
• That hand does not look particularly red. Perhaps it is Communist.
• This looks like someone got buried alive in a granary, like in Frank Norris's The Octopus. How did he get buried? Like the cover says, it's "A Mystery."

Best things about this back cover: 

• "There was a little man—who got away"—well that's the worst nursery rhyme of all time. Did the little man go to market at least? Come on, give me something.
• St. Erme!? Really? St. [hesitation noise]!? Do you pronounce it "ERMIE?" Forget what the little man did with St. Erme's right hand, what did he do with the rest of the letters in Erme's name?!
• The writing here is terrible. Choppy, awkward. Who are these people? Why do I care? Why is the book talking to me!!? "You'll keep going on excitedly..." Well now I definitely won't. Just to show you that you're not the boss of me.

Page 123~

"You live around here, Dr. Ridder?" he asked me, making coffee.

"Riddle," I said. "No, I live in New York. I'm on my way down from Vermont. I wonder when that car passed me." 

"You saw it passing you?"

"No," I said. "I didn't see it."

"And you say you're the Riddler, is that right?" "Just Riddle." "Justin Griddle?" It goes on like this.

~RP

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Paperback 1167: The Devil Threw Dice / Amber Dean (Pocket Books 1090)

Paperback 1167: Pocket Books 1090 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Devil Threw Dice

Author: Amber Dean

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 6/10

Value: $5-7

Best things about this cover: 

• Norman Bates lookin' like "aw, geez, not again." 
• "She was the kind of gal that many men might kill." Oh, one of those.
• "OK, sure, I threw dice at her, but since when has that ever killed anyone? I've thrown dice at lots of girls and none of them ever died!"
• I assume that's the girl's ghost looming over him. "Thought you'd be rid of me, did you? Ha. I'm gonna haunt this stairwell til doomsday, brother!"
• Even in death, the woman must be portrayed in a way that emphasizes her shapeliness, even if that means that her left breast levitates comically skyward.
• Amber Dean ... is a woman. Not a lot of women writing this kind of hardboiled fare midcentury. She published over a dozen crime novels with Doubleday between the mid-'40s and mid-'60s. I just discovered that a. I own other books by her, and b. she was from western NY (specifically Rochester, only a few hours drive from me). The University of Rochester has her papers. The academic / detective in me wants to Start A New Project...

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Someone had killed her. And it had to be a guy!" I mean, statistically, yeah, pretty much.
• I'm calling it right now. It was Putt Perry. That guy is two little arcs away from Butt Berry. Who knows what depravities someone with that name could get up to!?
• "She had an excitingly evil face" ... not one of them depressingly evil faces you see sometimes. No siree, this was an evil that could really rev a guy's engine, if you know what I mean [yeah, we get it, Putt, we get it]
• Artist credit! Lou Marchetti! A titan. Can't say that this is my favorite cover of his, but the man generally does great work.

Page 123~

Somewhere a bird twittered sleepily, and an answering twitter said "Darling, I'm here. I'll be here when you wake."

What the hell kind of twisted avian fantasy is this?! 

~RP

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Paperback 1166: Asking For Trouble / Joe Rayter (Pocket Books 1132)

Paperback 1166: Pocket Books 1132 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Asking For Trouble

Author: Joe Rayter

Cover artist: James Meese

Condition: 6/10

Value: $6

Best things about this cover: 

• "I call this dance The Karate Robot! Hey, where are you going? Come back here!" 
• I know there's a lot happening in the foreground, but I can't stop staring at the ghost waiter, wtf? "I have come to steal souls and serve drinks ... looks like we're about out of drinks."
• James Meese is probably a Mount Rushmore-level cover artist, but I take him for granted. I don't think of him as having a distinctive style, but man every one of his paintings just look like "yep, that is gold-standard '50s action pulp action." The woman in particular is a work of kinetic beauty, with the double Fear Hand™ and everything. The dude ... well, you can't say he's not unique.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Someone decided to pull the price tag off with something less than care.
• Kinsey Report reference, mwah! A+ topicality. The one on male sexuality came out in '48, the one on women in '53, and they gave people a way to talk more openly about the whole range of human sexual behavior (beyond procreative sex). And man did they talk. I used to specifically collect pbs that referenced the Kinsey Report on their covers, or that featured sex studies à la Kinsey—most of those books were, uh, not put out by mainstream publishers.
• By brining up Kinsey, the book kinda sorta vaguely hints that Christy might've had female lovers. Or queer friends. Or both. I'm adding a "Lesbian" tag to this write-up. I'm never gonna read the book, so the tag may be wishful thinking, but so be it. You tell me she's "wild," I feel like I got license.
• This cover copy tells me nothing except I hope to god the author doesn't actually write this way

Page 123~

I passed a saloon that had a big oil painting of a heavy-breasted nude reclining on a red couch over the bar and decided that it looked like a good place to have breakfast.

I've made breakfast decisions for worse reasons.

~RP

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Paperback 1165: What D'Ya Know For Sure? / Len Zinberg (Avon T-093)

Paperback 1165: Avon T-093 (3rd ptg, 1955)

Title: What D'Ya Know For Sure?

Author: Len Zinberg

Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 3/10

Value: $2?

Best things about this cover: 

• "Who's got one thumb and no idea how to control his emotions? This guy!"
• "Did you run over my book with your car and then try to tape it back together? Did You!?" (this may be the worst-condition still-fully-intact book in my collection)
• Poor lady. She's got extreme "Sir, this is an Arby's" face.
• Avon first published this book as Strange Desires, and yeah, she definitely looks like she wants nothing to do with his strange desires.
• Not a big fan of the implied domestic violence here, but that dude's expression is an all-timer.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Here is the Hollywood of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN—the writing quality of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN, sorry, we don't got none of that."
• Side effects of reading this book may include frantic bedlam of the underside ...
• "Full of awareness" LOL wot? "After reading this book, I am aware ... that it sucks."

Page 123~

Joe was busy changing into a sport shirt. His body was hog-fat with age.

Side effects of aging may include hog-fat ...

~RP

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Paperback 1164: And Sometimes Death / Jo Valentine (Pocket Books 1083)

Paperback 1164: Pocket Books 1083 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: And Sometimes Death

Author: Jo Valentine

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• "A, E, I, O, U ..."
• What's the opposite of a peeping tom? Where you peep ... from inside the house ... at people who aren't hiding at all?
• "Hold me, Steve. My weird neighbor is freaking me out."
• LOL the original title makes it sound like a novel about the psychological problems of a misunderstood Norse god
• What is the ragged-edged frame supposed to evoke here? It's not torn paper, or an explosion. More like a stain. Or a country in the Balkans you forgot existed

Best things about this back cover: 

• Like Proust's madeleine, only shamefuler
• So ... behind his hands ... is his heart? How did that happen? Henry Duncane, anatomical wonder!
• That last paragraph is weird. Is he hoping for a disaster? What disaster? Does he see the disaster in the night sky "beyond her?" Is it an asteroid? I hope it is an asteroid.

Page 123~

Nobody bathed in Thor Lake.

See, that should've been the title of the book. 

~RP

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Paperback 1163: Savage Triangle / Louis-Charles Royer (Pyramid 134)

Paperback 1163: Pyramid 134 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Savage Triangle

Author: Louis-Charles Royer (tr. Lawrence G. Blochman)

Cover artist: Uncredited 

Condition: 7/10 

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• The long-awaited follow-up to Cruel Square and Feral Circle!
• Pretty sure I know who the "bad girl" is in this scenario? I'm betting on the bespangled, dark-haired drunk with the breadstick fingers.
• Love when they make paperback covers out of discarded aftershave ads.
• Dude is looking straight down her dress. 
• Blonde: "Frank never stares down my dress like that!" [tears forearms savagely]
• [extreme B-52s voice] "Love Camp, / Baby, Love Camp!" 

Best things about this back cover: 

• Is this all she does? Stand around and watch her boyfriend make out with other ladies? She needs another hobby.
• Carmela! Stephan! ... Elsie!? Wow, you can really tell who the third wheel is here. Passion! Romance! ... Moooooo!
• I kinda like this little b&w watercolor sketch, actually. Better than just reproducing the cover art on the back.
• Ah yes, the passionate, dark Italian woman and the frigid, blonde virgin. "I fear womanhood, I desire womanhood, I'm a virgin who's going mad, what will they call me!?"
• "An act of murder brought them together." Classic meet-cute!

Page 123~

Neither woman dared question Kocheff, and he ate his soup in silence

Timeless story structure: Boy meets girl, boy meets other girl, boy eats soup.

~RP

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Paperback 1162: A Gentle Murderer / Dorothy Salisbury Davis (Bantam 1083)

Paperback 1162: Bantam 1083 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: A Gentle Murderer

Author: Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Cover artist: [Charles Binger]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $12

Best things about this cover: 

• "Oh, hello. You startled me. Hammer? What hammer? Oh, this hammer. Yes, well, um ... I'm the maintenance guy. Yeah, that's it. As you can see, the legs of her bed collapsed, and I'm just here to fix it. Totally normal. I'm sure she's just sleeping . . . you can go now."
•  Seriously, why is her bed slanted? Is that some new Tik Tok beauty trend—slanted sleeping?
• "Bud Cort is ... Peter Lorre in ... A Gentle Upholsterer Murderer!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• They're really puttin' all their eggs in the Anthony Boucher basket here.
• The design elements here are so random. Pink words here, blue words there, a floating right angle for framing purposes ... but all it's framing is an ugly block of text. PERHAPS ONCE A YEAR a back cover is designed this poorly.
• Well, if you squint, you can see why they decided to go a different way with the cover. What the hell was the artist thinking with that original cover. The floating head of deranged asylum escapee with a razor through his nose? Or is that a vacuum cleaner? A push broom? I refuse to believe that's a hammer. And even if it is a hammer, why is it attached to his face like a mustache??

Page 123~

    "I heard you singing."
    "I have a good voice."
    "Very good. It's like a cello."

    "A good cello."

    "Of course."

"A good cello." No, a shitty cello, what did you think he meant? Jeez, lady, learn to take a compliment. I'm starting to see why someone would want to kill you with a hammer.

~RP

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Paperback 1161: Unidentified Woman / Mignon G. Eberhart (Popular Library 60-2452)

Paperback 1161: Popular Library 60-2452 (Unknown ptg, reprints Dell 213, 1960s sometime)

Title: Unidentified Woman

Author: Mignon G. Eberhart

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

Best things about this cover: 

• She did the Mash. She did the Monster Mash. A little too hard, I'd say.
• Those bubbles are preposterous. Gorgeous, sci-fi preposterousness, those bubbles. Perfect spheres of physical impossibility.
• Nice scarf. This painting is d-e-a-d dead without that pop of color from the scarf. 
• Absolutely hate Popular Library books of this vintage (60s). No artist credit. No printing stated. No printing year stated!? Maddening. It's like they were planning to spite me, the collector, personally, 60 years later.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Another reason to hate this vintage of Popular Library book—they just threw a cropped version of the cover image on the back. Boo! Lazy!
• Of all the images evoked by the drowned lady, "crazy quilt" is, I can safely say, not among them. Bold tagline!
• Wait, is this the "girl floating in the river"? I would've pegged her as "submerged in the lake." Shows what I know.
• There really should be a colon after "Victoria." I would also accept an em dash.

Page 123~

John Campbell, his face rather pale, too, under its tan, said quickly, "Oh, let her go, Beasley. You can't do any more tonight."

So he's got one of them see-through tans? I've heard of those (I have not heard of those) 

~RP

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Paperback 1160: Visions and Venturers / Theodore Sturgeon (Dell SF 12648)

Paperback 1160: Dell SF 12648 (PBO, 1978)

Title: Visions and Venturers

Author: Theodore Sturgeon

Cover artist: Wayne Barlowe (illus. by James Odbert)

Condition: 7

Value: $5

Best things about this cover: 

• The Man Who Shot Fire From His Nipples!
• This cover is disorienting. The man is apparently part of some illustration that has been torn open to reveal a vibrant green spacescape of some kind. But what is the illustration an illustration of? What on god's green planet is happening there on the left, under the title and author. An inscrutable sepia jumble.
• Now that is an artist's signature! Dated and everything. Of course the book itself doesn't credit the cover artist (only the interior illustrator), but that signature is clear and unmistakable (thanks to the isfdb for the identification—what a resource)

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Sturgeon's People" sounds like a public access show featuring interviews local freaks, weirdos, cranks and crackpots
• I have some questions for Dad (if that is your real name...). Namely, what have you done with my peanuts?
• I like when characters throng a story. None of this meek "inhabit" or "populate" bullshit! Throng or move along!

Page 123~ (from "Won't You Walk—")

He kept the bathrobe they gave him pulled snugly over his amplifier, and under a hot towel he reached almost the euphoric state he had been in last night.

"His amplifier" sounds like some kind of euphemism, so I don't really want to know what's going on under that towel, thank you very much...

~RP

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Paperback 1159: Killer's Payoff / Ed McBain (Perma Books M-3113)

Paperback 1159: Perma Books M-3113 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Killer's Payoff

Author: Ed McBain

Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Condition: 8/10    

Value: $12-15

Best things about this cover: 

• Uptown girl!
• "Can I help you?" "Uh, don't mind me, ma'am, I'm just picturing you with your clothes off. For purely professional reasons, you understand."
• Love how his arm makes a frame within the frame, love the depth-of-field juxtaposition of old girl / new girl, love the yellowed atmospheric street scene in the background. This kind of crime fiction cover is the reason I got into collecting in the first place. Can't believe Ed McBain paperback originals with great covers don't fetch higher prices. 
• Not fond of that particular style of neckline, but the color of that dress is fantastic, esp. against this grim urban backdrop.
• Is it weird that my first thought about this cover painting is "that's a very good left hand"? Extremely realistic meat-fist with crooked thumb. That hand has seen some action. Done some violence. I buy this guy's hardboiledness right from the jump, based solely on that hand.

Best things about this back cover: 

• LOL. "I try and try and try but ... nope, still voluptuous!"
• I don't know what you call the outfit she's wearing on the cover, but I know that it's not a "loose-fitting suit."
• Ah, blackmail. Remember when people used to be ashamed of their pasts? When having people find out about your pole-dancing past could ruin your politically ambitious husband's career? It was a different time.
• This is a good blurb. A little long, maybe, but that ellipsis at the end is really working on me. I want to know more. 

Page 123~

Alice Lossing lived in Isola.

What the front and back covers fail to mention is that the entire novel is written in tongue-twisters.

~RP

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Paperback 1158: Easy to Kill / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 319)

Paperback 1158: Pocket Books 319 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Easy to Kill

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Hawes

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• Wow, he really is easy to kill. Just tickle his clavicle and there he goes. Done for.
• Some of the worst hand art I've ever seen. That reaching left hand ... it's kind of a Fear Hand, but it's also a ghost hand, as well as a "my thumb in a mini-croissant" hand. Is he reaching for a light switch? Making shadow puppets? Scratching a blackboard in hopes that the sound will drive the devil away? A truly bizarre monstrosity.
• And that other hand isn't much better. It's more like a tree branch, or a really bloody mop.
• Love a clear artist's signature. There's not an artist credit, and I don't have a single Hawes in my collection, so I don't know what the first name is.
• For an 80-year-old book, this one is in remarkably good condition. Very minor warping and surface wear, but otherwise apparently unread.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh, "It's very easy to kill." I see. Now.
• So the title is Easy to Kill and the back cover tagline is "It's Very Easy to Kill" and the last line of the back cover blurb is "It's very easy to kill." I've got just one question: is killing hard? I hear it's hard.
• If I could kill people with "a special look," the bodies ... my god the bodies ... 

Page 123~

"I'm pretty good at taking care of myself too. Hard-boiled, I should think you'd call me."

No, I won't be doing that. If you have to tell people you're hard-boiled, odds are that you're no such thing.

~RP

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Paperback 1157: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? / Agatha Christie (Pan X736)

Paperback 1157: Pan X736 (1st ptg, 1968)

Title: Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

Best things about this cover: 

• The mise-en-place here is exquisite. I imagine this was all arranged with tweezers.
• I assume "Evans" is just out of frame, having been killed by a heroin overdose or a golf ball to the head or a golfball to the head while overdosing.
• I was gonna say "people who put price stickers directly on paperbacks are monsters," but they I carefully removed the sticker on this one without doing any damage. I could rescan it, I guess, but I like showing it as I found it.

Best things about this back cover: 

• If putting a price sticker on a cover is a crime, then writing on the cover in pen is a war crime. "30?" 30 what!?
• Agatha Christie looks like a sadistic Swedish nanny.
• This book is one of Aggie's poorest efforts. I know this because it's written on the title page of the book:

Page 123~

    "What's the matter with you, Bobby. You look as though you were miles away."

    "Sorry. As a matter of fact—"

    "Yes?"

    "Well, I was just wondering. I suppose—well I suppose it's all right?"

    "What do you mean—all right?"

    "I mean it's quite certain that he did commit suicide?"

Dun dun DUNNNNN!!

~RP

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Paperback 1156: The Under Dog and Other Mysteries / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 1085)

Paperback 1156: Pocket Books 1085 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Under Dog and Other Mysteries

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: James Meese

Condition: 9/10

Value: $12

Best things about this cover: 

• Me after three drinks and five pelvic lifts.
• Whodunnit? My money's on the giant yellow rectangle.
• Just a great dead-man-spilling-toward-the-foreground image here from James Meese. 
• On second thought, I don't think he's actually dead; I think he just got drunk and walked smack into the yellow rectangle. 
• I cannot figure out what the standing man is doing (besides looking suspicious)? He seems to be smoking a cigarette with his left hand but also holding what looks like a pipe (but is not a pipe) in his right hand? What is he holding? It's driving me nuts. [reader opinion is that he’s holding a lighter; I can live with that]
• I like how the lady combines Fear Hand with a kind of sexy hands-on-hips pose. Fear Hand, but make it shimmy.
• This book is in spooky-good condition. It's got some surface wear but otherwise it's square, sharp-edged and shiny.

Best things about this back cover: 

• That is possibly the most dramatic "For example..." in the history of the written word.
• I have questions about Submarines A through Y.
• "And in The King of Clubs Hercule Poirot's knowledge of bridge makes him even more insufferable than usual." No wonder the police are still looking for an answer—they probably couldn't bear to sit through his tedious explanation. 

Page 123~

"Think of that solid middle-class English family, the Oglanders."

I will not. You can't make me. Furthermore, if you're going to invent a family name, try to come up with something more plausible than the Oglanders. Next you'll be talking about the Blabfasters and the Foozengibbets and then where will we be? In a Dr. Seuss book, that's where?

~RP

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Paperback 1155: Poirot Loses a Client / Agatha Christie (Dell 6984)

Paperback 1155: Dell 6984 (1st thus, 1974)

Title: Poirot Loses a Client

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: [William Teason]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $5

Best things about this cover: 

• Found her!
• Rube Goldberg's grandma-killing machine—surprisingly effective
• Well, the bad news is that grandma has come back from the dead. The good news is that her flexibility has improved considerably!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Who Would Want to Kill a Nice Old Lady? A novice murderer, probably. Someone who's only just taken it up. An old lady seems like a good starter murder.
• Why are there always seven people and why are they always at a manor? You'd think they'd all have some kind of inkling, like "hey ... this feels ... kind of murder-y, right?"
• I want to read this just to find out why Poirot was (apparently) so horny for this client. "Poirot channels his sexual frustration ... into justice!"

Page 123~

"Poirot," I said, "I'll begin a sentence with 'Are you sure?' Are you sure you are not being carried away by professional zeal? You want it to be murder and so you think it must be murder."

To which Poirot replied, "Now I'll begin a sentence with 'Fuck off, you insufferable twit,' ..."

~RP

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Paperback 1154: The 1,000-Year Plan / Isaac Asimov (Ace D-110)

Paperback 1154: Ace D-110 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The 1,000-Year Plan

Author: Isaac Asmiov

Cover artist: Ed Valigursky

Condition: 7/10    

Value: $10    

[gift from a reader]

Best things about this cover: 

• John Houseman is ... Mr. Clean in ... The 1,000-Year Plan! 
• Is he just wearing a shitty t-shirt with a worn-out collar? How am I supposed to take Captain Eyebrows here seriously if he can't even keep his uniform tight.
• "Sir, we have a plan for waxing your head?" "Fantastic, how long will it take?" 
• Weirdly, this book was released both as one half of an Ace Double paperback (also numbered D-110, with Poul Anderson's No World of Their Own as the flip side) and in this standalone format. I have no idea why.

Best things about this back cover: 

• That's a nice shade of blue, I guess.

Page 123~

"A priest is at the head. He has been identified as High Priest Poly Verisof. He demands the immediate release of Mayor Salvor Hardin and cessation of the war against the Foundation."

Those names! Was this originally written as space porn? Come on. You're gonna tell me that these characters weren't originally named Polly VerySoft and Salvor Hard-On? I don't believe it.

~RP

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Paperback 1153: A Murder Is Announced / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 820)

Paperback 1153: Pocket Books 820 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Murder Is Announced

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Frank McCarthy

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10    

Best things about this cover: 

• When your CPR compressions are *way* too hard...
• Lady looks like she's competing in some kind of haunted house biathlon, and losing
• Dead guy's right hand is gonna haunt my dreams for days. I count five fingers, but somehow it looks like seven

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ah, the classified ads. I miss those. People advertising help wanted, selling furniture, announcing murders. The good old days.
• Pretty close to Halloween to being going to strange women's houses. Particularly strange women named Letitia Blacklock. Oh, did the lights go out? Were you "locked" in "blackness"? What did you expect to happen!? 
• God bless Pocket Books for the artist credit. Love an artist credit. Hate having to track artists down (or, worse, and more common, not being able to find out who did the art at all)

Page 123~

"If you'd been up against it, and then, rather like a shivering stray cat, you'd found a home and cream and a warm stroking hand and you were called Pretty Pussy and somebody thought the world of you ... You'd do a lot to keep that ..."

Boy, would I. You got that right.

~RP

P.S. My long winter hiatus is over. Gonna try to stick to a regular T/Th publishing sched. for the foreseeable future, with possible weekend posts if I have the time. Thank you to loyal readers. Tell a friend! xo

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