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

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]