Paperback 1092: The League of Frightened Men / Rex Stout (Avon 20)

 Paperback 1092: Avon 20 (PBO, 1942)

Title: The League of Frightened Men

Author: Rex Stout

Cover artist: I.N. Steinberg

Condition: 6.5/10 (well worn but tight and sturdy)

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• That's a honey of a cover, Mrs. Dietrichson (since this lady's hair is almost as bonkers as Barbara Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity, I had to make the reference; had to)
• Lacquered. That is how I believe you'd describe ... well, everything about this woman. Those eyebrows are ready for battle. And that is the side-iest sideeye I ever saw. Lethal.
• Dig that spooky, wavy title font. Man, they do not make 'em like they used to. This is a swell-looking book, stem to stern
• Floating heads! I live for the floating heads motif, especially when the woman surrounded by the heads is completely untroubled by the heads, like "what do you suckers want?" See also ...

And now the back cover ...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Meh. Your standard Shakespeare-head stuff. Boilerplate. 
• "Shakespeare! Get yer hot pink Shakespeare, here! Just two bits!'
• "GOOD BOOKS" but merely "Great Authors"; even capital letters were subject to war rationing
• Wait, did books used to be hard to open??? "How do you work this thing!!?"

Page 123~

    "For God's sake keep still. Don't move your head." I looked at Wolfe and said, "Somebody's tried to cut her head off. I can't tell how far they got."

    She spoke to Wolfe. "My husband. He wanted to kill me."

Well, she's talking, so as attempted beheadings go, you gotta put this one down as a failure. Still, she does bleed every time she moves her head, so it had dramatic results, at least. I found the last Stout I read (Fer-de-Lance) a little (lot) ridiculous, despite the great characterization, but I gotta say this p. 123 bit has got me re-interested in Wolfe World. Might give it another go.

~RP

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Paperback 1090: Operation Intrigue / Walter Hermann (Avon 706)

 Paperback 1090: Avon 706 (PBO, 1956)

Title: Operation Intrigue

Author: Walter Hermann (aka Walter Wager)

Cover artist: Uncredited, dammit

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• "Operate!?" "It takes a very steady hand..."
• I feel like Pensive McGee there is about to exclaim, "Hey, what if we split this into two different games: Battleship ... and Operation!" "You mean, 'Operation Intrigue', of course." "No, there's no intrigue. There's just this goofy looking guy on an operating table and you try to remove his various body parts without getting an electric shock." "O ... K, but can I still use my baton? I must insist that this be a baton-based game. Look how fun it is, pointing and pushing, doo doo doo..." And somehow this all leads to a war in Southeast Asia 10 years later.
• I love the hard edge dividing the foreground from the background of this painting. It's like the guy on the right is mad at the people on the left 'cause their side of the painting is boring as hell. "I'm over here looking like the baddest hardboiled motherfucker this side of Flatbush, and those dorks are playing board games? Nah, this won't stand. This is my cover. They gotta go."
• Seriously, that's a great-looking fist and a perfectly level gun. I like how the guy is literally too big for the frame. "They think these little white lines can hold me? Me and my fedora will show 'em, we'll show 'em all!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow, that is ... quite a "7". They're really leaning into that numerical visual concept. Big, fat Pop Art-lookin' "7." Nothing scarier, nothing more ... intriguing ... than a "7," that's for sure. 
• You got a cool name like OPERATION MINOTAUR and you decide to call your book OPERATION ... INTRIGUE? INTRIGUE? Not exactly evocative of anything or memorable in anyway. And then you put a "7" on the back? Real missed Minotaur opportunities here, is what I'm saying.
• That third paragraph reads like a question on a standardized math test. "If five men and two women are checked by four counter-espionage agencies, how many Minotaurs etc."

Page 123~

He had done this massive thing. He felt so strong and proud and clever. Then he thought of the women's clubs and creamed chicken luncheons he would never have to face again, looked at the handsome muscular sailors, and smiled. They were fine healthy lads. They were his friends.

I'm just gonna assume the "massive thing" is coming out, good for him, Happy Pride, everyone!

~RP

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Paperback 1038: The Fugitive Eye / Charlotte Jay (Avon 670)

Paperback 1038: Avon 670 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Fugitive Eye
Author: Charlotte Jay
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $5-7

Best things about this cover:

• "Uh, hey ... I was just ... she was ... I ... just clearing some brush, you know ... at night, in my suit ... it's totally normal, everything's normal"
• Is that her dress, or did she die inside a giant salmon?
• Talk about a fugitive eye. I'm over here, buddy!
• Fear Hand (male edition)

Best things about this back cover:

• "How do we convey the sheer terror!?" "Maybe write it on a slant?" "OMG THAT IS TERRIFYING!"
• "Don't start this..." LOL, OK!
• I'm mad at "Invariably"; yeah, you heard me, Cincinnati Times-Star
• "MISS"—we got ourselves an unmarried Aussie authoress, boys!
• "Beat Not the Bones" never doesn't make me laugh

Page 123~

But as he looked around his gaze met no human face.

There was this one raccoon face, but raccoons probably couldn't testify in court, thought Steve

~RP

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Paperback 1001: I, Barbarian / Jay Scotland (Avon T-375)

Paperback 1001: Avon T-375 (PBO, 1959)

Title: I, Barbarian
Author: Jay Scotland
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12

Best things about this cover:

• His mind on women, his groin on horses
• I, Shirtless—the flamingest novel east of the Urals!
• His left hand is weird. Like it should be holding something. An ice cream cone, or a lovely bouquet of flowers, perhaps

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel's not frank, but it is frankish
• Adjective every noun!
• I like this little sword-split design

Page 123~

"Didn't you notice the unbounded delight in the eyes of his highest excellency when you gave that last feverish lunge toward the edibles?"

If there's another way to approach edibles, I haven't found it.

~RP

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Paperback 999: All Shot Up / Chester Himes (Ace T-434)

Paperback 999: Avon T-434 (PBO, 1960)

Title: All Shot Up
Author: Chester Himes
Cover artist: Uncredited (!!) (update: appears to be work of George Ziel)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $65-80

Best things about this cover:

• Gah, so great. So so great. Multiple scenes of hot hardboiled greatness. Tough-guy mug, sexy naked lady, trenchcoat gunfight ... bar! All the good things.
• Chester Himes is fantastic. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger are unique and important figures in the history of detective fiction. Badass *and* hilarious. Their dialogue is amazing, as are their razor-sharp observations on race relations in the city. Highly recommended.
• Either that dude is holding the wrong end of the cigarette or he's holding a very tiny test tube.

Best things about this back cover:

• Big on alliteration, this copywriter. First babes bourbon and bullets, now hailing in Harlem...
• "Eight—Count 'em, eight—corpses." Eight, OK, I believe you, eight. Jeez. Don't get so defensive.
• "Skidding on ice and breathing fire"—which Game of Thrones book was that?

Page 123~

"I'd rather be bit in the rear by a boa constrictor than sitting here waiting for something to happen, and I can't even guess what," he complained bitterly.

It's a boa constrictor ... I mean it can bite, sure, but ... it's kind of known for ... the other ... oh nevermind.

~RP

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Paperback 956: The Big Gold Dream / Chester Himes (Avon T-384)

Paperback 956: Avon T-384 (PBO, 1960)

Title: The Big Gold Dream
Author: Chester Himes
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Estimated value: $50-60
Condition: (9+/10)

Best things about this cover:

• She has that face I get when I look at the internet for too long. But she has better lips. And better hair. In that she actually has hair.
• Love the Big Gold Font
• I'm not usually a big fan of the multi-scene cover, largely because it makes all the visual elements too small to have the kind of dramatic impact I like, but this particular iteration is nicely handled. Captures the darkness and brightness (and architectural elements) of the city really nicely.
• This book is in indescribably great condition. Shiny. Square. Unfaded. Tiny bit of wear to spine and very faint warp toward the tippy top of the book are the only things keeping this from 10/10 condition rating.
• Chester Himes is a really important writer—possibly the most important black crime fiction writer in US history. The fact that I own a first-edition Himes in *this* condition is one of the crowning glories of my 20-year collecting addiction odyssey.

Best things about this back cover:

• Those numbers slips are Fantastic. The rest, blargh.
• Does have a compelling opening line, though. I want to dream about pies exploding with 100 dollar bills!
• "The smell of fresh violence filled the air" is one of the more haunting lines I've read on a back cover.
• Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones remain the best-named detectives in crime fiction history. Hercule shmercule.

Page 123~

Slick turned his stare back to Susie. "You're not very bright, rockhead," he said. "He wants to cut himself a slice of our pie."
"He's going to get more slices than he's looking for," Susie threatened.

Ooh, double entendre. Good one, Susie.

~RP

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Paperback 952: The American Gun Mystery / Ellery Queen (Avon 523)

Paperback 952: Avon 523 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The American Gun Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• So much emotion and drama in this one little tableau. It's really quite beautiful, even though I have no idea why a gorgeous blonde in an evening gown and opera gloves would be at the rodeo.
• It's lit like a religious painting. Caravaggio or Rubens or someone. She's bathed in light, praying, pleading ... I mean, this is probably some generic shlock, but the cover makes it look complex and compelling.
• Also ... sweet chaps.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is far less compelling. What is the shape of those blocks supposed to represent? I see the belt and gun and lock, but the puzzle(ish) pieces ... aren't convincing. As puzzle pieces. I'm no jigsaw aficionado, but that top piece, for instance, seems impossible.
• I don't like being invited to "solve" the puzzle, and I've never ever read a mystery with the idea that I was supposed to solve it. I realize that makes me slightly weird, as "mystery" fans / collectors go.
• "Deadly Puzzle" is still bothering me. Who associates rodeo with jigsaw puzzles? What's more, in what universe is a jigsaw puzzle scary? Ooooh, deadly puzzle! I'm shaking.

Page 123~

He gulped down two raw eggs, a steaming pannikin of coffee, an excited regurgitation of the preceding evening's events issuing from Djuna's chattering mouth, and then dashed downtown to Times Square.

PANNIKIN SKYWALKER is my new user name.

~RP

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Paperback 930: Beyond the Night / Cornell Woolrich (Avon T354)

Paperback 930: Avon T-354 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Beyond the Night
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $35 (slightly scuffed but essentially unread; beautiful)

Best things about this cover:

• Double Fear Hand!
• It's like a flood light is 8 inches from her head. No wonder her left eye exploded out of its socket.
• The Ghost Was An Undertaker Who Wore a Virtual Reality Headset!

Best things about this back cover:

• Your lips are sealed, eh? Well MY LIPS DESTROY!
• "When she beckoned, dick had to follow." Wow. That is one powerful seductress.
• SOMEBODY'S CLOTHES!—the tale of a woman who has seriously had it with doing your fucking laundry.

Page 123~ (from "The Number's Up")

She was a blonde, good-looking and mean-looking, both at the same time.
"C'mon," she said huskily. "Let's go while the going's good."

As opposed to the blonde who alternates dizzyingly back and forth between good- and mean-looking. *That* girl's hard to be with.

~RP

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Paperback 927: Ashenden / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon PN240)

Paperback 927: Avon PN240 (13th ptg, 1969)

Title: Ashenden
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited (who does these awesome psychedelic late '60s Avon covers!?)

Estimated value: $15 (bit scuffed, but very tight, square, barely if ever read)

Best things about this cover:

• This is like "Being There" meets "Laugh-In" meets "Planes Trains and Automobiles" meets "Monty Python" meets "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor MURDER Coat"!
• This cover is Milton Glaser-esque.
• Purple? The spy wore ... purple? Really?

Best things about this back cover:

• It's like a dream catcher ... for breaths.
• There's a lot of "Cold" here. Nothing about the color scheme says "Cold." Earth tones never say "Cold."
• I prefer my dens ruddy.

Page 123~

R. was a soldier and regarded introspection as unhealthy, unEnglish and unpatriotic.

Great sentence, but one that cries out especially hard for an Oxford comma.

~RP

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Paperback 926: The Doom Stone / Cornell Woolrich (Avon T-408)

Paperback 926: Avon T-408 (PBO, 1960) (serialized in Argosy in late '30s)

Title: The Doom Stone
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15 (tight and complete but super-water-damaged)

Best things about this cover:

• Vampires shower too.
•  "I said MOOD RING, mom. What am I supposed to do with a DOOM STONE?" "I thought you and your little friends could summon the dead, dear."
• No pupils, no nipples, no problem!

Best things about this back cover:

• Skeletor Eastwood and his international gang of the undead want their goddman doom stone back.
• Aw jeez, why are the men always selling their souls and the women giving their bodies. Can't we, just once, reverse that?
• "Insult to Southern womanhood"!? How? I hope the Doom Stone insults some lady's cornbread.

Page 123~

The Chinese girl in the ricksha said, in an astonishingly genuine Cockney accent that must have rubbed off on her from long association with merchant-mariners and limey tars, "Don't tyke too long, byeby. We imes to get there before the plyce closes down, doncher knaow." 

I think I will add Dr. Doncher Knaow to my list of aliases.

~RP

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Paperback 918: Call for the Saint / Leslie Charteris (Avon 526)

Paperback 918: Avon 526 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Call for the Saint
Author: Leslie Charteris
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Tied-up lady's expression: "So, uh, are we gonna do this or aren't we? .... guys?"
• This looks more like ballet than a legit needle take-away. What is that showoff one-handed bullshit? With that dramatic right hand? WTF, Saint?
• Would-be assailant is both racially and genderly ambiguous. I'm going with Philippine woman, but that's a (needle) stab in the dark.
• This cover has needle *and* bondage, so it's priceless, no matter what the market dictates.

Best things about this back cover:

• She's got quadrilateral eyes!
• Needle me once, needle me twice!
• No shapely rags for you, missy!
• "Almost screamed"? Not sure if her voice didn't quite there, or if she thought better of it, and went for demure statement instead.

Page 123~

"Killed? De Champ? Why, he'll moider de bum!"

Had to read this a few times to get it. I figured De Champ was a French dude.

~RP

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Paperback 900: Outlaw Guns / E.E. Halleran (Avon 522)

Paperback 900!!!!!!!!!!: Avon 522 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1953)

Title: Outlaw Guns
Author: E.E. Halleran
Cover artist: Bill Randall

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• I call this one "Rampant Horses On Yellow Background For Some Reason"
• Beardy's all "Oh, 'Outlaw Guns' ... I get it now! Yuck yuck yuck .... boobs."
• She has insane murdery dead-eyed vacant 1000-yard stare.
• Bitch eyebrows? Bitch eyebrows.
• This cover is terribly ill-conceived. *She* seems ready to go, right out of the box, but everything else (except the wicked awesome wood font and Beardy's mug!) is a total mess.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks less like a bandit and more like a guy protecting himself from a smell.
• Still, that sketch is pretty cool. Love the cute yellow inset.
• Well, of course, if you're gonna have "Outlaw Guns," you gotta have Outlaw Bullets. Otherwise you're just running around waving your guns going "pew! pew!"
• "Pronto!"

Page 123~

"Don't jam the chute," Frazer warned him.

Good advice.

~RP

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Paperback 887: Replenishing Jessica / Maxwell Bodenheim (Avon 191)

Paperback 887: Avon 191 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Replenishing Jessica
Author: Maxwell Bodenheim
Cover artist: [Phillips & Troeger / Troeger-Phillips]

Estimated value: $12-15

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Let's see … how to replenish Jessica? Sure, I'd say FIVE MEN oughta do it.
• This appears to be the story of how the Flash got married, settled down, and got a steady job with an insurance company. "Is this what you wanted, baby?" he seems to ask.
• The most reliably informed reseller of vintage paperbacks on abebooks describes this book as a "SEX and HEROIN NOVEL," so … that's unexpected. And brings the total to two—two possible ways to replenish Jessica.
• The only reason I still attend crossword tournaments is so that Doug Peterson can slip me some vintage paperback contraband in a dingy little plastic bag. It's all quite (appropriately) sordid.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare looks dubious about the literary merits of the publishing enterprise to which he has affixed his mug.

Page 123~

"This new school does away with all of the old qualms and quandaries, and we can certainly accomplish more when we know that sex is, well, is only the violent servant that we've hired for purposes of recreation."

Actually, the violent servant you've hired is named Tony, and it'll be $300/hr.

~RP

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Paperback 838: Hell-Town in Texas / Leslie Ernenwein (Avon 873)

Paperback 838: Avon 873 (2nd ptg?, 1960)

Title: Hell-Town in Texas
Author: Leslie Ernenwein
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15-20


Best things about this cover:

• Are there other kinds of towns in Texas?
• Despite appearing relatively generic, there's actually something spare, pared-down, and gorgeous about this cover. The pure blue background gives a sense of delicacy to the men and horses, and that dust is some kind of abstract magic. Just great.
• Books don't come in better condition than this. Off-the-shelf new. Sparkly, even.

Best things about this back cover:

• But what's his name!?
• Clyde Lambert grabbed a fish, but Marshal Terhune stopped him: "No, Clyde. Not Missouri Style. *Texas* Style." So they dueled with grapefruits.
• That's a pretty nice marshal sketch, truth be told. Only marshals and stone-cold fops can get away with an ascot like that.

Page 123~

Contacting the same friends who'd turned down the Oro Kid scheme, he found them eager to invest their savings in his sawmill proposition.

There's two great crime novel titles right there: "The Oro Kid Scheme" and "The Sawmill Proposition."  You're welcome, writers.

Happy Thanksgiving,

~RP

Paperback 830: Trinity in Violence / Henry Kane (Avon 618)

Paperback 830: Avon 618 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Trinity in Violence
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-$15


Best things about this cover:

• A great cover mucked up by someone's bright idea of a teaser. "Let's put the first words of the book on the cover! It'll be revolutionary!" "Where are we gonna put them?" "Why … here, right across the bottom half of the dame. Nobody likes dames on covers anyway. It's words, Words they cry for!"
• I feel like she's so pinned in by darkness that we really Need the color from the bottom half of her dress. It honestly takes me several takes, every time I look at this thing, to realize it's a fur over her right shoulder and not some weird dark thing in the foreground blocking my view.
• Also, is the apartment building on fire? If not, why is there thick black smoke around the title?
• She looks an awful lot like my second college girlfriend. My girlfriend tended to wear more clothes and carry fewer guns than this lady, but still … if this lady we're looking at is named "Rosie" (as that damned block of text suggests), then that's another weird connection, as "Rose" was an element of my girlfriend's name.
• There's something quintessential about this cover. Not great on its own, but great at capturing a certain cover type: generic, be-hatted, trenchcoated sap stands in as proxy for reader/viewer. Doesn't matter what he looks like. It matters what She looks like. And it matters that she's trouble.

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the primitive video game-like swarm of armed "A" logos. I just need a Peter Chambers icon and a joystick.
• Henry Kane looks like he wants desperately to escape the photo shoot.
• "The Scandinavian?"

Page 123~

He nudged a pinky-point at his thin mustache.

From his picture, it looks like Henry Kane knows from thin mustaches. Authenticity, thy name is Kane.

~RP

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Paperback 790: The Big Brokers / Irving Shulman (Avon G1009)

Paperback 790: Avon G1009 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Big Brokers
Author: Irving Shulman
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Poster hanging outside the world's toughest barber shop.
• "We can do five haircuts. That's all. Five: The Wedge, The Mob Boss, The Moll, The James Dean's Dad, and the Sandy Duncan. You want anything else, keep walkin'."
• Honestly, though, this is how all pulp characters look in my mind. Exactly.

Best things about this back cover:

• Joyce has clearly seen every variety of dipshit male-kind has to offer.
• "Finally goes berserk" — oh, Bull, I'm sorry I laughed so hard at this. Please forgive me.
• Itzik has no front. Only a back. It's pretty gruesome.

Page 123~

Alex worked his way back toward Brighton and he stepped along briskly, without a worry in the world, picking up his bets: twos and threes and fives and tens, twenties, and even a fifty-dollar one from a player who was running in luck so that Alex wondered if he hadn't a secret source of dirt available to him, and while Alex walked, whistling and snapping his fingers when he wasn't destroying betting slips, his senses were alerted for shadows and cops.

Honestly, the sentence just before this one was even longer.

~RP

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Paperback 787: The Man Who Never Was / Ewen Montagu (Avon 640)

Paperback 787: Avon 640 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Man Who Never Was
Author: Ewen Montagu
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Exciting to imagine Ghost Major—riding the seas, thwarting the Nazis.
• Less exciting when you find out "the man who never was" was actually an "anonymous corpse" that doesn't reanimate or nothin'.
• This cover manages to be clever without being particularly interesting or exciting.

Best things about this back cover:

• More visual riffs on The Invisible Man theme.
• Silly Germans—Tricks are for Victorious Americans!
• "Operation Mincemeat" sounds like a WWII-themed Looney Tunes short featuring Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Page 123~

An attempt at an immediate thrust into the area of SALONICA and THRACE need not be reckoned with.

And that's how Major Martin avoided the clap.

~RP

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Paperback 746: The Avon Book of Detective and Crime Stories / ed. John Rhode (Avon 21)

Paperback 746: Avon 21 (1st ptg, 1942)

Title: The Avon Book of Detective and Crime Stories
Editor: John Rhode
Cover artist: NA

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The font? Maybe? Also pink. Pink is nice.
• This old Avon has held up *really* well. I love a good old paperback that's beat-as-f*ck but still perfectly solid and tight. You could read this a hundred times and it would just get more broken in.
• This is a classic detection bonanza right here. Not really my cup, but a pretty sweet collection nonetheless.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare-Head!
• Shakespeare likes mysteries and also the US Armed Forces. Heed Shakespeare's plea, y'all.
• You can store paperbacks in such things as "clothing" or those new-fangled contraptions, "bags."

Page 123~ (from "A Shot in the Night" by The Baroness Orczy)

My experience is that in all emotions and all weaknesses, in all virtues and in all vices, women invariably outdo the men.

But this is beside the point.

~RP

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Paperback 731: The Terrible Night / Peter Cheyney (Avon T-365)

Paperback 731: Avon T-365 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Terrible Night
Author: Peter Cheyney
Cover artist: Darcy

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The cigarette. Definitely the ominous, abandoned cigarette.
• "Gore galore!"
• Title font = awesome.
• Interesting variation on the Keyhole Cover. Sadly, in this case, I get none of the titillation of voyeurism. The view is sordid. I'm all for bondage (!), but whatever's going on here seems too grim to be exciting.

Best things about this back cover:

• … sorry, I was just contemplating what a great addition THEOMARA would make to my Crossword Compiler dictionary.
• Lion + snake + woman. So he's like a griffin … kind of.
• All the best trappers use tanga.

Page 123~

O'Mara said brusquely: "No. Go to bed." He went out into the corridor; down the stairs. As she went into her room he heard her murmur: "Such a pig …"

I don't have much to go on, but my gut tells me she's right.

~RP

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Paperback 726: New Orleans Lady / Viña Delmar (Avon 209)

Paperback 726: Avon 209 (PBO, 1949)

Title: New Orleans Lady
Author: Viña Delmar
Cover artist: [Bernie] Barton

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The cover of Latex Fetish Monthly, June 1949
• I love a title written in Whorehouse font.
• Her breasts are like some kind of fancy little cupcake.
• Cover's pretty boring, but if you stare at it long enough, it gets a little creepy. Dude looks like something Charles Burns would draw.

And now the back cover…

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare's like "Hey … 'sup?"
• If you sing "Eulalie" to the tune of "Layla," it kind of works.

Page 123~

She passed her hand tiredly over her forehead. "Please, Lorenz, go away. I must rest. One of my headaches—"

"Go away indeed! I'll cure your headache." He threw a glance toward Septembre. "I have news."

"I'll cure your headache." HA ha. Oh, Lorenz, you're the date-rapiest!

P.S. Septembre

~RP

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