Paperback 1108: Double Sin / Agatha Christie (Dell 12144)

Paperback 1108: Dell 12144 (1st New Dell, 1980)

Title: Double Sin

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6

Value: $6

Best things about this cover: 

• Hey kid, you got a little ... just ... on your mouth there ... no ... I'm a mirror ... my right, your left ...
• For some reason, Random Heap of Objects is a common Christie cover motif
• Who would arrange this stuff like this? What are the jewels even doing? How is that gun standing on end? Who would sculpt such a creepy wide-eyed kid? As you can see, all the blood is the least of my concerns
• Why is Hercule Poirot not also "incomparable" (or something like it)? Where's his hyperbolic adjective? I think he's earned it. 

Best things about this back cover: 

• This cover copy makes it sound like Marple and Poirot team up, or at least interact in some way, but I'm pretty sure this is a collection of short stories, none of which feature both detectives at the same time. Calling them an "unstoppable combination" is at least a little misleading.
• What year do UPC codes start appearing on paperback books? A truly evil year, that.
• This back cover is boring, the design uninspired. The corners of the text frame are vaguely deco-ish, which I guess is supposed to evoke the era in which the stories are set, but ... meh. I do kinda like the mirrored "A"s at the front and back of "AGATHA," but that may be the only design element here that I like.

Page 123~

An idle young man, she thought, but good-looking.

Finally—horny Miss Marple! It's what we've all been waiting for.

~RP

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Paperback 954: A Shilling For Candles / Josephine Tey (Great Pan G170)

Paperback 954: Great Pan G170 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: A Shilling for Candles
Author: Josephine Tey
Cover artist: Peff

Estimated value: $15-20
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• OK, Britain, you wanted to go back in time, you love your precious currency ... here you go.
• This cover is both very creative and very boring. Hard to get "dymanic" from three candle-heads.
• Peff! 4 of 5 dentist recommend Peff for their patients who chew Peff. Peff!

Best things about this back cover:

• Formatting. Come on, Britain. You guys have formattting, right? Spaces? Indentations? That stuff?
• As if "by Horoscope" wasn't unscary enough—you put in inside marquee stars? Now DEATH just looks silly.
• I'm sorry, "at the séance"? I feel like we missed a plot detail.

Page 123~

Sanger had made further enquiries from many people about that unsympathetic character, Herbert Gotobed.

I assume this is some kind of dream sequence.

~RP

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Paperback 815: This Is Elaine / Jason Hytes (Midwood F229)

Paperback 815: Midwood F229 (PBO, 1963)

Title: This Is Elaine
Author: Jason Hytes
Cover artist: Paul Rader

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Whoa. I was never a big "Seinfeld" fan, but maybe I need to reconsider …
• I love how happy is to be warming her bare bottom with the flame of a single candle. It's the simple pleasures…
• I am laughing so hard imagining the sad person sitting on the broken Merry-Go-Round of Sex.
• Hmm. Define "Bestseller."
• "Sex Before Six," the best-selling follow-up to "Fucking Before Five Fifteen."

Best things about this back cover:

• I'd like to speak to the mayor.
• "Jason Hytes has exposed their wanton merry-go-round of sex…" Wait, is this non-fiction? Did he go undercover, as it were?
• At this point, if there is not an Actual Merry-Go-Round Of Sex in this book, I will be very, very disappointed, Jason Hytes.

Page 123~

Clay Brackett moved out of a group of men to block her path, his darkly handsome face flushed and lusting.

"Flushed and Lusting: The Clay Brackett's Face Story"

~RP

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Paperback 714: The Violent Hours / Frank Castle (Gold Medal 554)

Paperback 714: Gold Medal 554 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Violent Hours
Author: Frank Castle
Cover artist: Lu Kimmel

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Hi, Murder? Hi! I was wondering, if you weren't too busy, maybe you'd like to come over for some love? .... You would!? Great! I'll put on something red and light a candle. See you soon!"
• There is a whole subgenre of cover art that involves Girls Spilling Over The Edges Of Beds. Here's one. I know I've seen Many, many more.
• This position offers Optimal Breast Viewing but does pretty terrible things to every other part of the body. Her hair looks like a wasp's nest.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Ooh, it's half past murder. Time to look in my pants again!"
• "Sheeted."
• "Webb Grayburn" is not a name that inspires confidence. Sounds like a guy who owns an above-ground pool dealership.
• OK, it's mostly text, but I still love the asymmetrical, crayon-like design with the whimsical, face-free clock hands. 
• The book comes pre-distressed, so the actual wear and tear around the edges of the book fits right in with the book's original aesthetic.

Page 123~

It became so quiet in the room that the distant clatter of a teletype became loud.

It's not the most elegant sentence, by a longshot, but I do like the aural experience it provides.

~RP

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Paperbacks 705 and 706: Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand / La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque / by Anatole France (Livres de Poche 873 and 481)

Don't really have anything to say about these, but they're technically in my collection, and the illustrations are quite beautiful in their way (esp. the "Cyrano" cover), so, here you go—

Paperback 705: Livre de Poche 873 (n.d.) (ca. mid-60s)

Title: Cyrano de Bergerac
Author: Edmond Rostand
Cover artist: Uncredited (signature not legible to me)

Yours for: $12

***

Paperback 706: Livre de Poche 481 (n.d.) (ca. mid-60s)

Title: La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque
Author: Anatole France
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10



~RP

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Paperback 574: The Innocent Mrs. Duff and The Virgin Huntress / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace Double G-509)

Paperback 574: Ace Double G-509 (1st thus / 1st thus, 1963)

Title: The Innocent Mrs. Duff / The Virgin Huntress
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11

Best things about this cover:

• Singularly ugly. The only thing I can really get behind here is her hair, cutting its epic, destructive path across the lower Great Lakes.
• Cat: "Meow, why am I in this picture. Meow."
• Why has the lady incompletely painted her face like the Italian flag?
• That insane Puritan-looking doll is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen on a cover. At least I  hope that's a doll. . .
• Somewhere, a magician mourns his exclusion from this painting.

Best things about this other cover:

• More phenomenal, outsized hair. Also, she appears to be mowing the lawn with her chin.
• She reminds me of Kim Novak in "Vertigo," only with a disembodied head and scary psychokinetic powers.
• Seriously, the cover painting C-team must've got this book assignment. Blocky, ugly, head-y. Junk.

Page 123~

He was choking; he could not draw any air into his lungs. His neck swelled; there was a frightful pressure in the back of his head. O God ... This is it ...

Holding bravely tackles the issue of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Way ahead of her time.

~RP

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