Paperback 334: The Partridge Family #5: Terror By Night / Vic Crume (Curtis Books 06148)

Paperback 334: Curtis Books 06148 (PBO, 1971)

Title: Terror By Night
Author: Vic Crume
Cover artist: Photo

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Literally nothing about this cover — the pic, the design, nothing — says TERROR BY NIGHT. Is there a ghost in the amp? Is Keith gonna get blown away by some wicked feedback?
• There's a weed-whacker on the wall.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Downbeat for Danger!" should have been the title.
• Why is "and when Keith" italicized???
• "Provincetown was *nothing* like Keith expected..."

Page 123~

Keith Partridge and Bill Angelo, dripping wet, followed with another heavy box, and in back of them were eight men—three of them in handcuffs.

"Mom," said Keith, "it's not what you think."

~RP

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Paperback 57: The Crime is Murder / Helen Nielsen (Curtis 6105)

Paperback 57: Curtis Books 6105 (1st ptg?, n.d. - circa 1970)

Title: The Crime is Murder
Author: Helen Nielsen
Cover artist: photo cover


Best things about this cover:

• O my god, they killed Beethoven! You bastards!
• A million bonus points to whoever can identify the piece of music featured on this cover.
• Again, another ugly, post-1960 book. The only reason I own this is my minor, short-lived obsession with Helen Nielsen. She was a reasonably big name in (semi-) hard-boiled crime fiction in the 40s and 50s, but then, poof, gone. I'm really intrigued by women who wrote "tough guy" crime fiction before, say, Sue Grafton. This book appears to have little if anything "hard-boiled" about it, but female hardboiled writers from mid-century are hard to come by, so I snatch up their books whenever I (cheaply) can. Nielsen's writing was featured in the (wonderful, essential) mid-90s anthology Hard-Boiled (eds. Pronzini and Adrian).

Best thing about this back cover:

• I'm not familiar with the use of "lay" in that last sentence. Or else ... I am familiar with it, and this book is a different genre than I'd imagined.

RP