Paperback 533: End Zone / Don DeLillo (Pocket Books 78282)

Paperback 533: Pocket Books 78282 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: End Zone
Author: Don DeLillo
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $8

Best things about this cover:

• Way outside my normal collection timeframe, but the cover (and author) caught my eye—seemed memorable / remarkable—like the last thing you see before you get strangled (to death, presumably).
• I like that it's a novel about football, but the cover only barely suggests this (title, font, "New Gladiators").
• That's the opposite of "Fear Hand"—most mid-century covers have a victim POV, with woman reacting to some kind of impending attack. Here, the attacker (in a context that can be only dimly imagined).

Best things about this back cover:

• Dang, high praise for a novel I've never heard of.
• "Is God a Football Fan?" is a pretty good tagline.
• So much for your Nostradamian powers, Cincinnati Enquirer.

Page 123~

"Gary Harkness. Good name. Promotable. I like it. I even love it."
"Thanks."
"Relax and call me Wally."
"Right," I said.

If anyone ever says "Relax and call me Wally," you're gonna want to end the conversation quickly and get out of there.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 52

Title: The Swimming Pool
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Carl Bobertz

Yours for: $6

• Uh ... I don't think she's "swimming."
• Ross Macdonald had a novel called "The Drowning Pool" ... You should take titling lessons from him, Mary.
• "... as the rare yellow octopus sucked the last ounce of life from Judith's brain."

• Just one question: if she is safe "in the solitude of a padlocked bedroom," then how could "her private terror" spread "to all around her?" No One Is Around Her.

Page 123~

Only three of us went to the inquest the next day, Phil, Bill, and myself. For Judith was sick. She had worked herself into a fever, I suppose because she always hated the idea of death.

"I suppose." Well, thanks for the not-at-all medieval diagnosis, doc.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 204: The Girl Who Had to Die + The Blank Wall / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace G-512)

Paperback 204: Ace G-512 (1st ptg / 1st ptg)

Title: The Girl Who Had to Die / The Blank Wall
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• There was this floating head that liked to eat sailboats, which made the tall, dark, mysterious man on the beach very sad. The end.
• What is it with the rainy day covers on all these Holding novels? Dreary and decidedly unhot. More skin, please.
• Actually, on third or fourth look, the streaks look less like rain than like the trim on some elaborate fur hat. Or a really, really bad haircut.

Best things about this other cover:

• This is one of my favorite pieces of crime fiction ever written. Ever. Seriously, it's that good. And unusual. Super suspenseful, with really complex and interesting characters. Women that aren't just femmes fatales. Just great. Provides a fascinating glimpse into domestic life during WWII (i.e. while the husband is away at war). Wish it would stay in @#$@ing print!
• More lazy art. Etch-a-sketch posing as op-art. And I think the guy from the other cover just walked through the book and ended up here. That lady is not a very good hider.

Page 123~ (from The Blank Wall)

"Here's something you might be glad of," he said, and held out three little capsules, bright yellow.

~RP