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 1080: Maharajah / Richard Cargoe (Popular Library 451)

Paperback 1080: Popular Library 451 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Maharajah

Author: Richard Cargoe

Cover artist: [Raymond Johnson]

Condition: 5/10 (intact, but with split spine)

Value: $6-10

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• At first it looks like he's scratching his chin as he's contemplating his next move, but then you look closer and realize he is nibbling. On a grape. And cupping a whole bunch of grapes in his other hand. And she's like "Yes, you like nibbling on my grapes ... there is much more fruit where that came from ... but I'm going to hold it over here out of view ... I know you are hungry for my fruit, but I will not simply give you the fruit; you are going to have to work for my fruit? I withhold the fruit until you are good and hungry. You are hungry, yes?" Fruit doing a Lot of work on this cover.  
• Dude's eyes are intense, predatory, vaguely insane. They are almost enough to distract you from the bright white shaving brush growing out of his forehead. Almost.
• I love these covers where intense desire is conveyed in a backward glance that totally defies the laws of physics (no way she can see him even peripherally from that angle) but still *feels* smolderingly real.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, Orientalism. How I don't really miss you. The "exotic" natives doing their carnal things in fancy garb, served up for westerners to gawk at. Like the fruit on the front cover, "exotic" is doing a lot of work here (as well as on the front cover!)
• I see how "INTRIGUE IN INDIA" might seem to have some inherent alliterative appeal, but it's really rather dull.
• Tbh I'm kinda invested in the storyline now. Team Tegra, for sure. That Halim guy seems like a jerk I would not like to have a beer with.

Page 123~

They are blackmailing us into a state of perpetual fear. I keep remembering how the tiger clawed off the monkey's limbs one by one. They may murder one person each day—every day they may murder a little closer to the throne. Have you thought of that?

Have I thought of what? I'm still thinking about the monkey. Is he OK? Did he get revenge? You can't just start a tiger/monkey story and then abandon it like that, man. You gotta see it through. Now bring me some fruit and start over.

~RP

P.S. the cover artist is Raymond Johnson. This exact painting was on the cover of Illustration #77, which contains a big article on Johnson:

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Paperback 1055: In Comes Death / Paul Whelton (Graphic 49)

Paperback 1055: Graphic 49 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: In Comes Death
Author: Paul Whelton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• Death looks kinda down-at-the-heels. Reduced to doing cheap hits. Must need the money.
• I'm obsessed with whatever she's wearing. Is that a ... housecoat? It looks too dressy for a nightgown, but too slovenly for outdoor wear. Lack of undergarments also suggests an indoors-only context, but ... yeah, what is this?
• She is very pretty and beautifully painted and I hate when there are no artist credits!
• Love the way she's wound the cord around her right hand. Nice touch. Fear hand (variation)!
• This scene looks very (Very) familiar ... 

... which is weird, since the movie came out two years *after* this book

and now the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• There is nothing intriguing, compelling, or even interesting about this description. Ooh, a "mysterious death." Aah, a "deadly game of wits." How ... specific and not-at-all boiler-plate.
• I want it to be Lonely Frog Lane, named after an actual lonely frog who lived there all alone, froggily
• This "describe the plot in complete but annoying vague sentences" really is bottom-of-the-barrel cover copy.

Page 123~

"Peace!" I intoned, making an exit.

Very slangy! Just like the kids intone it.

~RP

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Paperback 1031: The Great Mail Robbery / Clarence Budington Kelland (Popular Library 432)

Paperback 1031: Popular Library 432 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Great Mail Robbery
Author: Clarence Budington Kelland
Cover artist: [Earle Bergey]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• "Cheese it, fellas! It's Miss Smokestack 1952!"
• Mr. Freaked Out Impossible-Over-the-Shoulder-Glance in the extreme foreground there is pretty special.
• There is a lot happening in this manframe (n: a framelike structure composed primarily of man parts). There's shocked bighead, Li'l Cap'n Fearhand, and then Gunhand (he handles the guns). The lady does have a manic look—and she's radiating some kind of toxic emissions—but her body language says Bored Tween. Weird.
• They Made A Living Out Of Death = C-minus pun irony

Best things about this back cover:

• HIS!
• Inca! 
• "This side of Hell," LOL. What's on the other side of Hell? A Wendy's?
• "Suddenly there wasn't any robe." So she's some kind of ecdysiast-magician? Must be confusing for poor Will Scarlet.
• This book should be called "Will Scarlet and the Starlet." Or "The Great Female Disrobery."

Page 123~

He had been immersed but a few minutes when his telephone rang irritatingly. He forced himself to get up and, dripping and shivering, walked to the table beside his bed where the telephone stood.
"Hello," he said impatiently.
"This," said a voice, "is Jahala Vidmar."

"... said a voice" is about as pure an example of needless wordery as you're ever gonna see. Made me laugh out loud and completely forget the horrific adverb abuse that preceded it.

~RP

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Paperback 1021: Horns for the Devil / Louis Malley (Pocket Books 894)

Paperback 1021: Pocket Books 894 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Horns for the Devil
Author: Louis Malley
Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• "I Want You ... For U.S. Mafia"
• Not many covers break the fourth wall quite this breakingly. "Who are you? You got my sandwiches?! Well then whaddya want? Shut the fuckin' door! You lookin' at my girl!? Jerry, Lou, show this guy what for!"
• This is a fantastic cavalcade of mugs. Hall-of-Fame B-movie extras. Just hanging around, waiting for someone to call them up for another stint in Generic Mid-Century American Crime Story. "Our regular Girl At Bar No. 3 turned her ankle. You're in, kid!"
• It's not exactly like the work of director Louis Malle, but it is ... Malle-y.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Look here! Now I'm big and two-toned and my background is Rage Red! Where's my *&%^ing coffee?!"
• Severio Lebbrosa! That means "seriously like a leopard."
• No, no, no, it's "first you get the money, then you get the power, *THEN* you get the women." Come on, man. Did you not watch "Scarface?"

Page 123~

When they got out of the car Ralph squeezed her hand, but she wanted more than that. It had come so suddenly.

This was the very least boring sentence, which is wedged in between a conversation with an old lady and a scintillating drive to Westchester. I probably shoulda just let you think it was prelude to a steamy sex scene. Sorry.

~RP

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Paperback 1017: The Best Go First / Frank O'Malley (Bantam 959)

Paperback 1017: Bantam 959 (1st, 1952)

Title: The Best Go First
Author: Frank O'Malley
Cover artist: "Phillips" (signed, but no idea who this "Phillips" is)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• She's really taking the gun to that "O" like "hint, hint! I am on the Make," but ... he seems preoccupied with driving other rods into other chambers.
• "Look, I see your little innuendo there, Martha, but this Extortion-Murder is not gonna Extortion-Murder itself, so settle down!"
• The best go first. Steve, with his dirty gun and lack of torso covering, went third, most days, at best.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's like they meant to send in the final tagline but accidentally just sent in their brainstorming notes and the printer didn't understand and just went with All Of The Descriptive Words
• Crisp! Realistic! Sounds .... Frank! (the author's name is Frank; this is an author's name joke; please clap)
• Man, the adjectives are really running amok. I like how they added "hammering" after "driving" in case maybe we thought it was a novel about cars. Or maybe it is about driving ... to the hardware store!
• How many times do I have to meet this m***erf***er?

Page 123~

She was a woman who talked when you wanted coversation and sat quietly when you wanted to think. That kind is rare.

No, that kind is inflatable.

~RP

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Paperback 1008: Rogue Queen / L. Sprague de Camp (Dell 600)

Paperback 1008: Dell 600 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Rogue Queen
Author: L. Sprague de Camp
Cover artist: Mike Ludlow

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• That seems a reasonable way to learn about sex tbh
• "OK, so, step 1: put the spear away"—Earth-man
• I'm sure that phallic rocket is in no way a phallic symbol
• That is some very convenient cape and forearm
• Her hair is amazing

Best things about this back cover:

• "You ... complete ... me ... seriously, do it, complete me, I'm not a woman yet, get on with it."
• You take the good you take the bad you take them both and there you have the Facts of Full Womanhood, The Facts of Full Womanhood!
• That is the sloppiest damn ringed planet I even did see. It's like a 5-year-old drew a ball of yarn

Page 123~

"It is a curious feature of Terran culture that when the men do something of a stupidity they always blame their wives."

I like her.

~RP

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Paperback 973: The Road's End / Albert Conroy (Gold Medal 231)

Paperback 973: Gold Medal 231 (PBO, 1952)

Title: The Road's End
Author: Albert Conroy
Cover artist: [Barye Phillips]

Estimated value: $17-22
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• No joke, this dude looks eerily like 22-year-old me. Leering ladies in my doorway, not so much.
• "There were too many women in his life"—you'd think at least one of them would help him clean that sty.
• This appears to be some post-apocalyptic tale of drought, where water is money so you keep it close at hand and never wash anything.
• Where ... did his fingers go? Fear claw!

Best things about this back cover:

• "Curved feminine flesh" is less sexy-sounding than this book seems to think it is. More meat cut than sexpot.
• "Who are you?" he asked. "And who am I?"—finally, a sleaze paperback that reflects the then-current trends in existentialist philosophy.
• "I found a pasty man and put him in the shed. Can we keep him, mom? Can we!?"

Page 123~

My knee came up automatically and sank into his groin. And again. And again.

OK, I'm out.

~RP

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Paperback 970: The Illustrated Man / Ray Bradbury (Bantam 991)

Paperback 970: Bantam 991 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Illustrated Man
Author: Ray Bradbury
Cover artist: [Charles Binger]

Estimated value: $15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Happy Bradburthday! (b. Aug. 22, 1920)
• Ooh, the rarely seen *male* Fear Hand. Cool.
• First story in this collection is "The Veldt." It is holy-smokes great. Legendary. Rereading today.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is the greatest back-cover bio of all time. OF ALL TIME.
• Decry the hogwash!
• After this book came out, Bradbury continued writing for another *60* years.
• Had no idea he rocked the bow tie. Hot.

Page 123~

(LOL ... uh, this book is missing p. 121-152; not torn out, just ... never included!? Whoa. So ... p. 23!)

The first concussion cut the rocket up the side with a giant can opener. The men were thrown into space like a dozen wriggling silverfish. They were scattered into a dark sea; and the ship, in a million pieces, went on, a meteor swarm seeking a lost sun.

[Opening paragraph of "Kaleidoscope"] [insert quiet admiration here]

~RP

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Paperback 943: Mourn the Hangman / Harry Whittington (Graphic 46)

Paperback 943: Graphic 46 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Mourn the Hangman
Author: Harry Whittington
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $20-25
Condition: 5 (*only* because of water stain / slight warp—it's tight and square and cover is Amazing)

Best things about this cover:

• Pulled this one out of Aunt Agatha's crime/mystery bookstore in Ann Arbor. It was an impulse buy. Their idea of a "point-of-purchase display" is an authentic vintage paperback bookshelf (which I drooled over) choked to the gills with vintage paperbacks. So much nicer than the 5-Hour Energy Drink point-of-purchase displays you get at most bookstores ...
• My first thought on seeing this cover: Robert Ryan is pointing a gun at me!
• My second thought on seeing this cover: That is the greatest Fear Hand I've ever seen.

Best things about this back cover:

• And *there*'s the condition problem. But WhoTF cares about the back cover? This book is otherwise gorgeous.
• Excuse me, gotta do this: [clears throat] ... "STELLLLLAAAAA!"
• Whoa. Dark revenge narrative. I'm in.

Page 123~

Clinton Edwards opened the door of his Seminole Heights home. When he saw Blake, he seemed to go lax all over.

"My bowels!" he cried, probably.

~RP

PS bonus interior! (I really should start cataloguing interior design/illustration as well)

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Paperback 892: Dark Laughter / Sherwood Anderson (Pocket Books 878)

Paperbacks 892: Pocket Books 878 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dark Laughter
Author: Sherwood Anderson
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Her expression is somehow both lascivious and bored. It says "You … sure, you'll do."
• Maybe if you angle your boobs toward him just a little bit more, Lady Chatterley, he'll get the hint.
• The husband … is one of my favorite cover elements of all time. Without him, you've got a pretty typical paperback cover. With him, and his ham-sized pate and his spectacles and his "can't talk, reading" and his vibrant, shlubby boredom, this cover skyrockets to comedy. "What? Sure, fuck him, don't fuck him, whatever. I gotta check my stocks…"
• Reader Michael 5000 sent me this book. Since I hardly ever check my mail at school, I didn't discover this book until very recently. I had, very, very weirdly and coincidentally, checked out Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio that same week. Anyway, Michael sent along a nifty postcard with its own spot-on commentary:

And the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• Who wrote that tagline, Douglas Sirk?
• Not "love as few men have ever loved," but "love as few men ever have time to love"—like that's the issue. "Damn my 6pm squash game! I could be LOVING right now, but nooooo…"
• "… when she saw Bruce Dudley  she knew physical desire for the first time." Uh … I challenge. That is simply not a plausible statement.

Page 123~

Being in Rose's apartment that night was, for all the people who had been there, a good deal like walking into a bedroom in which a woman lies naked. They had all felt that.

I really, really wish I … knew what the hell this meant.

~RP

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Paperback 868: Framed In Blood / Brett Halliday (Dell 578)

Paperback 868: Dell 578 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Framed in Blood
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10

Best things about this cover:

• "Mmm hmm, I'd like to frame *that* in blood … wait, that came out creepy."
• Sideboob. Someone call HuffPo.
• "Was it an accident she left the door open? … I mean, it's like she *wants* me to furtively masturbate in her living room or something."
• And when the fairy princess finished her Tai Chi, Mike knew he'd wasted his time.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmmmapback!
• Mmmmmiami!
• Mmmmike Shayne!
• Mmmmmasturbation! (see cover)
• Oooh, Ned Brooks' apartment. That *is* interesting.

Page 123~

Shayne's sore face muscles rebelled at an attempt at a wry grimace.

In fact, most of Mike's muscles rebelled at the shit Mike tried to do. You see, Mike was an idiot, and...

~RP

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Paperback 856: Dividend on Death / Brett Halliday (Dell 617)

Paperback 856: Dell 617 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dividend on Death
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10-12


Best things about this cover:

• Mike Shayne fights back against Obama's Death Panels.
• "*That's* no thermometer!" cried Mike Shayne.
• It looks like he's trying to do some gun hackysack and she's like "WTF!?"
• His tie is awesome. Did he fall from the sky?

Best things about this back cover:

• How much for the alliteration classes?
• "a flock of kisses from a hot-mouthed blond"—"Her kisses were like feverish sheep…"
• Dr. Pedique has the cure! Or so I imagine.

Page 123~

She gazed at him disdainfully. "What gave you the idea you were such hot stuff? If you haven't anything else on your mind, I'll ask you to go. I won't weep any salty tears if I never see you again."

"Only freshwater tears for you, sailor. Now scram!"

~RP

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Paperback 835: Butcher's Dozen / John Bartlow Martin (Signet 909)

Paperback 835: Signet 909 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Butcher's Dozen
Author: John Bartlow Martin
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Estimated value: $12-$18


Best things about this cover:

• "Larry, are you… are you even trying? I feel like I'm doing all the work here. Would you lift for real, please? My calves are freezing."
• Larry's a sucker for a left boob. "She's dead, Larry. Give it a rest."
• Oooh, the *authorized* abridgment! I've been looking everywhere for this. Said no one.
• "Torso Murders!" It's about a guy who really hates Greek statuary.

Best things about this back cover:

• Never The Completely Sane Butcher. Not once. Unfair to butchers!
• Whoa, "dismembered his victims in a sadistic, sex-crazed frenzy" is pretty gruesome stuff. Lady on cover appears to have all her limbs, so maybe she's not dead after all. You're off the hook, Larry. Sort of.
• Dude looks like a lecherous psychologist.

Page 123~

On February 8 Klansmen and bootleggers clashed in the center of Herrin, and Caesar Cagle was killed. (Art Newman later claimed that one of the Shelton boys had put a pistol to Cagle's ear and, when he started to turn, said "Oops, too late," and shot him; this cannot have been quite true, since Cagle was shot in the chest.)

If by "cannot have been quite true" you mean "cannot have been true," then yes.

~RP

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Paperback 809: Tidewater / Clifford Dowdey (Perma Books P143)

Paperback 809: Perma Books P143 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Tidewater
Author: Clifford Dowdey
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "She was river scum…" I like a cover that gets right to the point.
• Ha ha, I'm enjoying speculating about her "something."
• Wow, that's a pretty high class of "scum" they got there in Tidewater. She must've got hosed down good. Only thing disgusting about her is her freakish arachnoid hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• "It was something that had to be done"—way to use the passive voice to get your sex on, Libby.
• Protracted deshabillitation scene gets thumbs up from this reviewer.
• Caffey… yeah, I'm not buying that as a guy's name. Caffey is a woman in my mind now. Sorry, nothing I can do, that's just the way it is.

Page 123~

To be with them more, he did his drinking, with Jeff Bunting as a companion, in the Pitch Bottom bars where the small planters went.

The olde-timey gay code of the river folk was pretty elaborate.

~RP

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Paperback 804: The Grass is Singing / Doris Lessing (Bantam 1045)

Paperback 804: Bantam 1045 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Grass Is Singing
Author: Doris Lessing
Cover artist: Fletcher Martin

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• OK, there are several remarkable things about this cover, but I'm somehow most struck by the "Painted by" credit! Attribution! Credit! So useful! Why aren't all paperback covers like this!?
• If you want an iconic picture for "The White Gaze," Here You Go!
• Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature, so I assume the writing quality here is a grade or two above "Mandingo."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Mounting tensions" WINK WINK
• "The one sin no white woman in Africa dares" … based on the cover, I'm betting on "Sloth."
• Technically "Brave New World" had already come, twenty years earlier. Still, I love how excited this book is.

Page 123~

Then followed a time of dull misery: not the sharp bouts of unhappiness that were what had attacked her earlier. Now she felt as if she were going soft inside at the core, as if a soft rottenness was attacking her bones.

The horrible days before Boniva.

~RP

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Paperback 786: The Celebrity / Laura Z. Hobson (Perma Books P190)

Paperback 786: Perma Books P190 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Celebrity
Author: Laura Z. Hobson
Cover artist: Owen Kampen

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• That is some grade-A bitch-glance. Not that she's a bitch, but that she appears to be thinking, "Pfft, bitches" and/or "Bitch, please. Fawning high school groupies ain't shit."
• And the winner of "Best Middle Initial" goes to …
• Surely the greatest painterly representation of folding chairs since Monet's "Folding Chairs sûr le Pont D'Argenteuil"

Best things about this back cover:

• Thornton Johns—Folding chair magnate!
• I don't know if his wife was a "loud-mouthed bitch," but those other questions don't seem very rhetorical. "Was he living with Jill Goodwyn?" Well, he either was or he wasn't. "Was he 6'2"!? Or 5'11", as his license indicated? READ AND FIND OUT!"
• Damn, "blunt" just isn't "frank." I like "blunt." But mainly it makes me miss "frank."

Page 123~

A larger life, a larger Thornton Johns. The persisting fear that something might again reduce him to the lesser Thornton Johns was a nightmare, to put it politely, of amputation.

I.e. plastic surgeons gave him a substantial penis extension and he was *not* giving it back.

~RP

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Paperback 739: Main Line / Livingston Biddle, Jr. (Popular Library 402)

Paperback 739: Popular Library 402 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Main Line
Author: Livingston Biddle, Jr.
Cover artist: Barton

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Slouchy guy's expression is priceless. I can almost hear him going "Pfft. Dames. Whaddyagonnado?"
• I love the action in this painting, but her face doesn't look quite … attached. Almost like she's holding a face-mask up to her real face as she runs.
• This painting has amazing street-level details. The cracks in the sidewalk, the guys on the stoop, the red awning, the hot dog / Italian ice vendor. It's a cool action street shot unlike almost anything I've seen on my paperback covers.

Best things about this back cover:

• The '50s, when things you might say to a cabbie were considered erotic.
• "Uh, I said 'Take me to a hotel,' not 'Take me to a shabby downtown hotel.'"
• I like how they are going to have one of those so-called, quote unquote "one-night stands." Oh, the saucy lingo.

Page 123~

"That's true … I can't offer Cassandra security in the terms you outline—but I honestly believe I can make her happy."
"You have found a place to take my daughter?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"

This is an awfully dark game of 20 questions.

~RP

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Paperback 725: The Case of the Lazy Lover / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 909)

Paperback 725: Pocket Books 909 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: TCOT the Lazy Lover
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Clyde Ross

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• That dude has my ultimate respect. That is some top-notch lazy. Superfly PJs. Highball. Slippers. Smart green couch. He knows what he's doing.
• That look in her eye is not lust. It's not annoyance. It's jealousy. Jealousy of his Red Hot Lazy.
• I can't stop looking at her boobs, and yet I don't find them very interesting. What the hell?

Best things about this back cover:

• That "Gossip … / and Murder!" heading would look great on a t-shirt.
• Hmmm. I'm not sure we have the same definition of "crazy punchline."
• What does it mean to be "lazy about making love"? I'm quite sure the images in my head do not match whatever happens in this book.

Page 123~

Mason took the pass Lieutenant Tragg scribbled, and went over to the detention ward. After a ten minute wait, he was taken in to see Mrs. Allred, who had quite evidently been aroused from a sound sleep and had had no opportunity to put on her make-up.

Wow. That must've been really hard on Mason.

~RP

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Paperback 716: Dark Intruder / Vin Packer (Gold Medal 250)

Paperback 716: Gold Medal 250 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Dark Intruder
Author: Vin Packer
Cover artist: Amos Sewell

Yours for: [not for sale]


Best things about this cover:

• Hide-and-seek fail.
• He doesn't look that dark.
• The only way that pose of hers makes any sense is if she's plunging her left arm down into the hay in hopes of recovering a lost earring.
• OMG his right hand WTF? For Halloween, I'm gonna dress as this guy's middle finger. Frightening.
• Vin Packer is a pseudonym for Marijane Meaker, a fine writer of PBO thrillers. Also, a woman. Also, the lesbian paperback writer Ann Aldrich. Also, the children's lit writer M.E. Kerr. And other things.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Father and daughter rode roughshod..." is not my favorite phrase.
• "Then Luke Came" would be a great gay porn paperback title.
• It's interesting to me how much the front and back covers play up "Spring Fire"—I think I underappreciated what a sensation that book was. See it here (Paperback 466).

Page 123~

She could not help thinking of what Raol had said about his mother, feeling a slow, teasing jealousy mount inside her.

First, yes, Raol, not Raul or Raoul. Second, the end of this passage makes me giggle.

~RP

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