Paperback 908: Six Seconds to Kill / Brett Halliday (Dell 8001)

Paperback 908: Dell 8001 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: Six Seconds to Kill
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: photo

Estimated value: sentimental, at best ($10?)

Best things about this cover:

• This is either the story of the world's most efficient lady assassin or the story of a lady executive determined to squeeze all the joy she can out of the world's shortest helicopter layover. Pilot: "You need to be back here in six sec—" Lady: "I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"
• I feel sorry for the model. That can't have been an easy pose to hold. Not in those nutso clog-heels.
• I bought this book in a vintage clothing store in Minneapolis, MN.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ladies and gentlemen—my new business card.
• Also, ladies and gentlemen—my new bride. (My wife will understand. She had a good run.)
• I love this classy lady: "I will drink [yes] and fuck [you go, girl] and kill Ed Meese [of cour— ... wait, what?]"

Page 123~

Shayne set the handbrake and got out. Understanding suddenly that she was about to be taken prisoner, she scrambled for a shotgun lying on the grass. Shayne kicked it away, pulled her to her feet and thrust her into the car.
"The fight's over. You're all by yourself, as far as I know."

I like the part where he set the handbrake.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 732: A Taste for Cognac / Brett Halliday (Dell 10c 15)

Paperback 732: Dell 10c 15 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Taste for Cognac
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob Stanley

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Red hair. Bow tie. Side glance.
• That ugly booth bench puts her in a rather weird, hunchy, decidedly unsexy position.
• His hand is almost too expertly rendered. Seems like a living thing, operating wholly independently from Cap'n Bow Tie.

Best things about this back cover:

• Psst, Blackie. He's gonna need his face for, you know, talking.
• Love trigger-happy gunmen. So much cooler than gun-happy triggermen. Or gun-shy gunmen—those guys are the worst.
• I am intrigued by the concept of "Night Bus."

Page 23~

"So you think I did it?" Shayne fumed.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 679: Murder and the Married Virgin / Brett Halliday (Dell 323)

Paperback 679: Dell 323 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Murder and the Married Virgin (a Michael Shayne Story)
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• So ... I'm guessing he's "The Married Virgin"
• I like how she is wearing an snow leopard-fringed cape and how it magically adheres to her back in defiance of all the laws of physics.
• This is an oddly romantic / sweet / slicks-type illustration. Where is my Sleaze!?
• I would not willingly live in the '40s but people did dress awesomer.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Barbie Dream House!
• That library is impressive.
• This illustration raises the question—does anything at all happen on the left side of the house?

Page 123~

"You're after something" Shane reasoned bitterly.

Wow, that is some unfortunate verb+adverb action.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

The P. Morrison Donations #10: Tickets for Death / Brett Halliday (Dell 8884)

The P. Morrison Donations #10

Dell 8884 (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: Tickets for Death
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Best things about this cover:

• "Tickets for Death ... I mean Raffle! Tickets for Raffle. Forget what I said about Death. We are raffling off this lovely couch. You like?"
• When throw pillows attack!
• What is that amorphous green splotch in the right foreground? Another throw pillow (suspended in mid-air)? A very very puffy ottoman? The back of a man who is doubled-over and heaving on the carpet (head toward the center, out of frame)?
• I love how she was clearly painted nude and then some purple came along and hopped on as a kind of afterthought. It's a rare evening gown that allows you to see every contour of the navel area.

Best things about this back cover:

• So is that MAME or MAMIE, pronunciation-wise?
• "This racket, she is encrusted with diamonds and rubies. You like?"
• "But with a girl like Mayme, you just want her to shut the hell up and do the sex."

Page 123~

His belly shivered gently, like a protuberant bowl of jelly, each time he breathed.

A nice hard-boiled riff on "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

The P. Morrison Donations #9: Blood on the Stars

The P. Morrison Donations #9

Dell 0626 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: Blood on the Stars
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Best things about this cover:

• This is one of the most horrifying covers I (now) own. Seriously, every time I look at it I recoil in "oh my god" fright. It haunts my dreams.
• It's like her face is floating, its spatial relationship to both the equine mass of hair and the torso seemingly coincidental. You know at, say, a carnival, when there are scenes painted on large pieces of wood and you can step behind them and put your face through a hole, and then your mom or whoever can take your picture ... whimsical stuff ... well, it looks like that's what's happening here, only for "carnival" substitute "utility closet in hell" and for "your mom" substitute "Satan himself." 
• What. Is. The. Background? Cork meets mangled animal pelt meets feathers meets dirty rug meets barber shop floor sweepings meets sadness.
• Was McGinnis depressed when he did this? Angry? Going through a bad break-up? All I know is: it's the ugliest damn thing I've ever seen. 
• Lastly: where's the blood? Where are the stars?

Best things about this back cover:

• Aaaagh. Jebus, quit scaring me like that, lady?
• Good tagline, or Greatest Tagline Ever Written?

Page 123~

Shayne said, "Go ahead. And keep your mouth buttoned up. This is a Secret Service investigation."

"Secret Service? Jeez. Is he one of them communist spies or somethin'?"

"Something like that." Shayne stepped back and waited until the milk truck had made one more stop, then turned the corner.

Mike Shayne did not consider his morning complete until he had impressed at least one milkman.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

The P. Morrison Donations #3: So Lush, So Deadly / Brett Halliday (Dell 8055)

The P. Morrison Donations #3 — Dell 8055 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: So Lush, So Deadly
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: photo

Best things about this cover:

• Talk about your $20 photo shoots, dear lord.
• Possibly the least manly cover I own. A slap fight? Girl's got a gun aimed at your head and you're gonna swat at her like she's a fly? I'm guessing that one second after this picture was taking, the girl with the gun just shook her head, said "pathetic," and walked away.
• Interesting how the fabric around their midsections appears blurred with motion. I'm just so so so glad the yellow towel didn't move any further.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dotty De Rham! Why am I not collecting these names!?
• I'm not sure I understand where the "Carnival" metaphor is coming from.
• Arson is a cardinal sin?
• The coolest private eye swings into hot action! Oh, Mike Shayne, you're the paradoxiest!

Page 123~

She was bouncing in his arms. He took her by the shoulders and made her hold still. She was still wearing the same short nightgown.

Mall Santa: After Hours.

Merry Christmas!

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 377: The Corpse Came Calling / Brett Halliday (Dell D401)

Paperback 377: Dell D401 (1st New Dell, 1961)

Title: The Corpse Came Calling
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• I used to eat popsicles that color—the long kind they'd sell out of ice cream trucks. It's like pink and tangerine had a fight and nobody won.
• That right boob is levitating, I think.
• I love her torpid, world-weary look: "Ugh, are we really out of gin again? Well, if anyone wants, me, I'll be on the davenport with my two poodles."

Best things about this back cover:

• One of the great, simple back cover designs of all time. Great visual use of the tag line. Wish the text were off to the side to let the glass have the room it deserves.

Page 123~

"She had to shoot him. I don't doubt that at all. And you'd naturally want to keep her out of the picture. That's all right, too. But you know me. If that's the way it was, why not say so? I can pull the zipper on my mouth any old time."

Kinky.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 238: She Woke to Darkness / Brett Halliday (Dell 867)

Paperback 238: Dell 867 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: She Woke to Darkness
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "She Woke to a Massive Head Wound"
• Doesn't everyone wake to darkness from time to time? I mean, when you gotta go ...
• Her left hip has grown its own hand. Creepy.
• That's one big, rectangular pool of blood.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the caricatures of the characters. Second one looks more like an 80's fashion model than a 50's dame who likes capital-M Martinis.
• Here's where Mike Shayne and I differ: I prefer vintage broads and vivacious brandy.
• "Who Is This Girl?" - early, eventually discarded title of Madonna's hit "Who's That Girl?"

Page 123~

The duplicating office had been able to shed no light on Halliday's disappearance. He had left with the original manuscript under his arm about six o-clock, and that was all they knew.

That's right. Writer "Brett Halliday" is a character in a novel by ... writer Brett Halliday.

~RP

Paperback 237: Call for Michael Shayne / Brett Halliday (Dell D269)

Paperback 237: Dell D269 (1st thus, 1959)

Title: Call for Michael Shayne
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm holding for Mike Shayne, so you can just wait your damned turn for the phone. Here, stare at the side of my left boob while you wait."
• One of the oddest cover poses I've seen for a McGinnis girl — casual gun play + casual, inexplicable semi-nudity. Yet the net effect is still smoking hot.
• For my birthday, I would really love it if one of you could PhotoShop this baby and make it say "Call For Michael Sharp" (my "real" name)
• I love the floating head of Mike Shayne. Quintessential tough dick.

Best things about this back cover:

• The fact that I have left the store's ID tag tucked into the back cover all these years. I love when stores are fastidious about labeling their shit.
• "The night of June 8" is tomorrow, fyi.
• We didn't need the first set of parentheses, let alone the second. What, are you whipsering?

Page 123~

Knowing Masters's reputation as a domineering bully, it seemed reasonable to expect his secretary to be a weak-kneed yes-man, a sycophant.

~RP

P.S. just hours after I posted this write-up, reader "Tulse" gave me this:


I should ask for stuff more often. Now I want it on a T-shirt. You're the best, Tulse. I'm truly grateful.

Paperback 139: Bodies Are Where You Find Them / Brett Halliday (Dell D327)

Paperback 139: Dell D327 (1st New Dell ptg, 1959)

Title: Bodies Are Where You Find Them
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Bob, Bob, Bob - why are you hiding her!!?
• The title of this book is so true
• If you Google ["is where you find it"], you'll be shocked at how many different things apply. Short list: Love, Home, Gold, Faith, Fun, Jazz, Art, etc.
  
• It's actually a very smoky cover, for being awfully short on lady flesh. Dishevelment + those eyes = hot.
• Love the double entendre on "bodies" here
• That Mike Shayne mug is a kind of trademark that appears on nearly all the Dell pbs of Mike Shayne novels. It's a Bob Stanley design, I think

Best things about this back cover:

• Honestly, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Is that the corner of a bedsheet?
• "... lots of money, from way back." Like ... antebellum? Is his wealth all in ducats? Doubloons?
• The only think I like more than an heiress is a "madcap heiress."
• Whoa whoa whoa - that chick on the front cover is dead? If so, that's a cruel, cruel joke.

Page 123~

"Let's just pretend we're invisible," Shayne suggested.

~RP