Paperback 306: High Sierra / W.R. Burnett (Bantam 826)

Paperback 306: Bantam 826 (1st ptg, 1950) (ex-lib)

Title: High Sierra
Author: W.R. Burnett
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover

• "Yeah, so, I like to grab the shaft real tight with one hand, like so, and then rub the tip back and forth with the other hand, real slow, like so, you see? And then ... what? What're you mugs starin' at? Ain't you never seen a guy polish his gun before?"
• I *love* the expression on her face. It's like she's saying, quietly, out of the side of her mouth: "Uh ... are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Clearly the dude with the cards is as stunned as she is ... staring intently ... clawing the chair arm ...
• In other news about the guy stroking his rod: those are some high pants. Tie-swallowing pants. And the girliest suspenders imaginable.

Best thing about this back cover:

• Only the Cincinnati Times Star really appears to be tapping into what I'm seeing on the cover.

Page 123~

Roy was appalled at the change in Big Mac's appearance and sat studying him covertly. Mac had lost a lot of weight and the skin under his chin hung in pale folds. His hands shook and he kept drinking glass after glass of straight whisky.

I can't help but picture a haggard, embittered, world-weary, alcoholic Mayor McCheese.

~RP

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Paperback 232: The Bitter Passion / John W. Wadleigh (Hillman Books 153)

Paperback 232: Hillman Books 153 (PBO, 1960)

Title: The Bitter Passion
Author: John W. Wadleigh
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Do you like my left shoulder? Do you? You're not even looking at it? Look at it!"
• John W. Wadleigh won the award for Most Unintentionally Pornographic-Sounding Author Name of 1960
• "A native man" - no, don't tell me, "native" is plenty of information ...
• Did the NY Times really say that a book called "The Bitter Passion" was a "net of passions?" That's just sad.

Best things about this back cover:

• You too, Los Angeles Mirror-News? We get it. "Passions." What else you got?
  
• "There had been several men" - nice euphemism! Way to use the passive voice to skirt the issue of your promiscuity, honey.
• "A novel of two lonely women" - whoa ... another woman? What happened to the "native man?" And how "lonely" are the women? Your answer will go a long way to determining whether I crack this book or not.

Page 123~

-In time, in time, I said. Be patient or you'll ruin yourself. Later you will remember. My words will come back to you, years from now, and you will understand, so trust me, yes?

-Yes, he said.

Without understanding any of it.

Silly non-English-speaking native. You'll never understand the eloquence and wisdom of ... whoever this chick is.

~RP

P.S. Thanks to Brian Cassidy for a very nice write-up of both "Pop Sensation" and "Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword" in his "Fine Books & Collections" blog.