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
- 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]
2 comments:
Is it weird that my first thought about this cover is, "wow, is that an actual glamour photo incorporated into the painted artwork? Pretty hi-tech stuff for the '50s," closely followed by, "well, no, duh - he probably just pasted the photo onto the painting and worked around it - easy".
The accompanying blackmail letter(?) however looks misshapen and weird - out of keeping with the attention to detail Schulz has clearly put into the rest of piece, making me wonder whether both items in the guy's hand are a later fix up added to the artwork.
Then I remember that it's 2026 and have stuff to do, so cease wondering.
Great cover, great hand. Making a painting of a photograph look like a photo is also really good.
But I'm pretty sure that's Queen Elizabeth, and that's giving me all kinds of mental whiplash.
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