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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