Paperbacks 1115 & 1116: The Ivory Grin & The Way Some People Die (Bantam 10979 & 10987)

Paperbacks 1115 & 1116: Bantam 10979 & 10987) (6th ptg, 1977 / 8th ptg, 1977)

Titles: The Ivory Grin & The Way Some People Die

Author: Ross Macdonald

Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Condition: 8/10 & 8/10

Value: $5-10 each

Best things about this cover: 

• I said last time that I had one more of these late'70s Archer covers by Mitchell Hooks, but it seems I lied: I had two, bringing my total to five. I guess I collect these now? Subcollection! Just what I need...
• Well yeah, sure, grins don't get much more ivory than that. 
• The dude loading the gun looks like a very disappointed middle manager. "We didn't make our quota this quarter, team. I told you there'd be consequences..."
• I'm super into that cat burglar guy but he's about a centimeter in height, and it's hard to truly love a design element that small. 
• The tealish hue coating every element of this painting is kinda sickly, but somehow when set against the equally sickly pale yellow background, it ends up ... perfect?

Best things about this 2nd cover: 

• Maybe my least favorite of these Archer covers so far. Still good, but the people look like they're carved out of wood. Looks a little sloppy, a little lifeless. But the neon signs and palm trees and dead guy are ... mwah!
• Her hair is insane. I can only hope that it's a wig. Her posture and expression are priceless, though: "Sigh, bikinis are so tiresome ... when do we drink?"
• Does the dead guy have a toupee that's come loose, or did he flatten a small bird with his head when he fell?

No point doing back covers, since they're just that same shadowy photo of Macdonald from the last book. So on to ...

Page 123~ (from The Way Some People Die)

    "The dirty bastard picked up and left me," she said in a deep harsh voice. Her eyes were round with anger, or surprise at her own language. "Good heavens," she said in her normal voice, "I never swear, honestly."

    "Swear some more. It will probably do you good."

~RP

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Paperback 1103: I Take This Woman / Georges Simenon (Signet 1034)

 Paperback 1103: Signet 1034 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: I Take This Woman

Author: Georges Simenon

Cover artist: Uncredited [Avati?]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• "... and I take this man [whispers] to hell ..."
• Not everyone's cut out to join the new Coffee Generation. Sadly, there is the occasional casualty.
• This vacant-eyed lady is exquisite. From the light on her hair to that amazing dress with its snazzy shoulder bows, to the bangle on her wrist to her prayer-like hands to the blue arsenic paper she's squeezing in barely suppressed mariticidal glee. Particularly amazing when juxtaposed with the dramatic cascade of falling humanity on the left. Her stillness against their movement, her nearness against their farness, bigness against smallness. Lots happening in such a little space.
  
• I aspire to read more Simenon, particularly non-Maigret Simenon. But most of what I own is vintage and I don't want to hurt it :(

Best things about this back cover: 

• Simenon would ultimately write over 400 novels. This is one of his romans durs ("hard novels"). If you look up "roman dur," it seems that the term applies only to Simenon. He seems to have coined it to refer to his non-Maigret novels that explored "aberrant behavior and psychological torment" without the generic constraints of the roman policier.
• "To understand people is to love them"—such a weird motto, so weirdly presented. "It expresses my heart, so it must be ... in handwritten script. No, it must! I insist! Put a typewritten translation underneath if you must, but the people must see my handwriting to understand my sincerity. Now leave me alone while I smoke my pipe and stare out the window."
• The original title of this book was La verité sur Bébé Donge (The Trial of Bébé Donge). I guess Bébé Donge was just too much ... name for an American audience. As with much French cheese, American palates were simply not ready for Bébé Donge (which kind of sounds like a cheese, come to think of it: "The brie is OK, but have you tried the Bébé Donge!? Magnifique!")

Page 123~

    "Question: Did he refuse to let you have what you needed? Was he strict with you? Did he scold you? Did he beat you? Was he jealous, suspicious?

    "Answer: He never bothered his head about me."

~RP

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Paperback 1006: The Pusher / Ed McBain (Perma Books 3062)

Paperback 1006: Perma Books 3062 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Pusher
Author: Ed McBain
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Condition: 6/10
Estimated value: $35


Best things about this cover:

• This cover is full of wonders, but the very most amazing part, for me, is luminescent cop face looking back over his shoulder like, "Uh ... wasn't me."
• Pictorially, I love the placement of the bare light bulb, but looks to be hanging about waist-high, which ... come on, even shitty apartments have to be moderately practical. Maybe he didn't kill himself 'cause of dope. Maybe he just got so frustrated at trying to get the light bulb to hang right that he was just like, "fuck it, I'm out."
• This seems an unlikely position / location in which to hang oneself. I'm no expert. But still.
• Detective: "This looks like ... what is this some kind of miniature turkey baster? Hey, Jim, come here and look at this?"
• The turn of his ankle is lovely and tragic. Same with the stubbed out cigarettes.

Best things about this back cover:

• Seriously, this is one of the grimmer back covers, after one of the grimmest covers I've ever seen. This book's not messing around.
• Aha! It *wasn't* suicide by hanging. Well, let me be the first to say, it honestly didn't look like suicide by hanging.
• Not a big fan of back covers that basically describe the front cover, tbh. SEEN IT! Tell me something I don't know.

Page 123~

She supposed, of course, that there were men who would try anything once, just for kicks. Why not a girl who couldn't hear or talk?

My favorite part of this is, "of course."

~RP

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Paperback 981: Hangover House / Sax Rohmer (Graphic 78)

Paperback 981: Graphic 78 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Hangover House
Author: Sax Rohmer
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10
Estimated value: $12-18

Best things about this cover:

• Dang. That's one bad hangover.
• The ever-so-delicate, blood red FEAR HAND
• The line and shape and color of her gown and gloves, truly exquisite
• Her molded plastic hair, however, yeeps.
• Fantastic eyebrows. She looks a lot like ... that actress ... from "Downton Abbey" ... Dockery? Mockery? Clockery? Yes, Dockery. Michelle Dockery. Tuesday Weld meets Michelle Dockery.
• Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you don't spend tomorrow in, well, the Hangover House.

Best things about this back cover:

• Usually gay. Screw your categories.
• Storm Kennedy LOL. Storm Kennedy, Porn Detective.
• Jeez, explain the plot more, why don't you? Ugh.

Page 123~

"Titles? Yes. Mrs. Muller was playing a published song of mine, last night—after the band had gone: Summer Is Winter When You're Not Around."

I Feel Like They've Taken My Dog to the Pound...
I'm Haunted by Demons Who Don't Make a Sound...
I've Run Your Dad's Company Into the Ground...

etc.

~RP

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Paperback 972: The Doctor Died at Dusk / Geoffrey Homes (Dell 14)

Paperback 972: Dell 14 (1st ptg, 1943)

Title: The Doctor Died at Dusk
Author: Geoffrey Homes
Cover artist: William Strohmer

Estimated value: $15
Condition: 5/10

Best things about this cover:

• "I LOVE MY DESK BLOTTER SO MUCH!"
• I wonder about his right hand. What was he ... doing ... when he died? Loving his desk blotter?
• Those are terrible, monstrous, pseudo-aquatic fingers.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Morgantown! Winner: Most Rectangular Town in America, 1943!
• Morgantown! Winner: Most Sparely Appointed Town in America, 1943!
  Morgantown: Enjoy Our Vast, Vast Open Spaces and Seven Trees!

Page 123~

Ingram wasn't looking in the microscope now.

Be sure to catch the sequel to this book, entitled "No Time For Microscopes" (Fall 1944)

~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 944: The Shadowy Third / Marco Page (Pocket Books 537)

Paperback 944: Pocket Books 537 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: The Shadowy Third
Author: Marco Page
Cover artist: Harvey Kidder

Estimated value: a pittance
Condition: 2/10 (read to death, i.e. beautiful to me)

Best things about this cover:

• "Now *where* did I put my little dead man? I know he's around here somewhere..."
• This dude has QWD face (i.e. Quintessential White Dick). He's ... perfect / generic.
• The man above our hero's left ear is either playing "got-your-nose!" or putting that guy's eye out with a lit cigarette. Choose a scenario to fit your mood!
• P.S. a violin

Best things about this back cover:

• "Oh, no! Not Igor *Krassin*!" I exclaimed, reflexively.
• "What kind of knife was it, Doc?" "Thin. It was thin. It's a technical term. I don't expect you to understand."
• It took more than a game of eeny-meeny-miney-mo to finger the killer. You also had to buy him a drink first.

Page 123~

"All right, if that's how you want it. I trusted you, Calder, I gave you every break so you could grab a fee on that violin. You're turning out to be a heel."

I love hardboiled man-feelings drama. "After all I've done for you, couldn't you just once hold me and tell me I'm pretty, Calder, you heel!"

~RP

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Paperback 940: The Problem of the Wire Cage / John Dickson Carr (Bantam 304)

Paperback 940: Bantam 304 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Problem of the Wire Cage
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Gilbert Fullington

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

Best things about this cover:

• Game, set, MURDER!
• MURDER, anyone?!
• MURDER commits a foot fault!
• "Oh my, I think he's dead. I'll just check his pulse. Let's see, I ... I just push my hand against his left shoulder, right? Like this? Right, Steve? Steve, honey, is this right? Knuckles-to-shoulder?"
• So much Fear Hand in this picture. They are both double-Fear-Handing it, for the rare QuadraFearHand™.
• "She's trapped in there with a corpse! How will I ever ... oh wait this is just a chain link fence, I'll just walk around ha ha silly me."

Best things about this back cover:

• MURDER has a respectable two-hand backhand!
• *Someone* has never solved a jigsaw puzzle, or sucks at metaphors.
• Old Nick Young, winner of Most Oxymoronic Name three years running. Take that, Big Steve Small!

Page 123~

"I suppose you know you could get into a lot of trouble for what you've been doing here today?"
The words jerked Hugh upright.

No more jerking, Hugh! 

~RP

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Paperback 939: The 13th Immortal / Robert Silverberg // This Fortress World / James E. Gunn (Ace Double D-223)

Paperback 939: Ace Double D-223 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The 13th Immortal / This Fortress World
Author: Robert Silverberg / James E. Gunn
Cover artists: [Ed Valigusrsky / Ed Emshwiller]

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Look familiar? (see Paperback 938)
• On line at the Genius Bar: "It won't reboot."
• I wanna do a coffee table book of old scifi art called "When Robots Looked Cool."
• Actually this one only looks cool above the waistline. Down below, things are a little spindly.

Best things about this other cover:

• You do not want to make an illegal throw-in in space soccer. The penalty's pretty harsh.
• Love the guy's double fear-hand (which are really shock-hand, but I'm gonna say "close enough").
• The nose-high black latex suit really completes the "Intergalactic Sexual Sadist" look.

Page 123~ (from The 13th Immortal)

One crushing fact rolled down on Kesley like a shock wave. One fact.

Please enjoy this eternal cliffhanger.

~RP

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Paperback 849: Warrant for X / Philip MacDonald (Pocket Books 328)

Paperback 849: Pocket Books 328 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Warrant for X
Author: Philip MacDonald
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15


Best things about this cover:

• "Light, damn you! Stupid modern, flame retardant bodies! I want s'mores now!"
• By far the fanciest lamppost you're likely to see on any of my covers.
• I genuinely love how the body spills out of frame. And the color scheme. And the "X".

Best things about this back cover:

• "Kidnapping!" is pretty anti-climactic. "Cannibalism!" was about what I was expecting with that build-up.
• They used to tell you how much it would cost to ship the book to a soldier overseas. Now it's just "Share it with anyone in a uniform, don't ask us what it costs, how should we know?" I hope people gave books to their diner waitresses.

Page 123~

He said: "I'm a busy man. Great matters hang upon my every word and action." He drank coffee. "I might justly be likened to the spider."

Though not lacking in confidence, Anthony was still working on his metaphor skills.

~RP

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Paperback 765: 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft / Tuli Kupferberg & Robert Bashlow (Grove / Evergreen Black Cat BC-140)

Paperback 765: Grove Press / Evergreen Black Cat BC-140 (3rd ptg, 1969)

Title: 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft
Authors: Tuli Kupferberg & Robert Bashlow
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Well, that's one way.
• This cover is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious (the latter by juxtaposition with the title). Contorted body is one of the most monstrous human figures I've ever seen. 
• Found this little book jammed in among a ton of other old paperbacks on a cart outside Falling Leaves in Ithaca last weekend.
• This book is literally a numbered list of 1001 ways to beat the draft. There are illustrations and documents interspersed throughout. It's a very, very serious joke, this book. 

Best things about this back cover:

• Kill for Peace
• If LBJ got drafted …
• Signature is a nice touch

Page 123~ (pages are unnumbered, so here is a sampling of Ways to Beat the Draft)

11. Start to menstruate (better red than dead)
479. Contemplate the horror of murder
480. Sleep late with your warm girlfriend
782. Be so ugly you fail even Army standards
4. Die 

~RP

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Paperback 748: Fair Prey / Will Duke (Graphic 142)

Paperback 748: Graphic 142 (PBO, 1956)

Title: Fair Prey
Author: Will Duke [pen name of William Campbell Gault]
Cover artist: Oliver Brabbins

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• Will duke for food.
• She is sporting some pretty serious shoulder muscle definition. 
• It's like fair play. Only it's prey. Get it?
• It's all kind of chaotic. Too crowded, too many things happening. Like some reality show where people compete to see who gets to be the actual cover subject. Dead man is very convincing, but the lady is going full axilla … that's going to be hard to beat. But wait, here comes a cop … with a drifter in his wake, trying to impede him … this is tough to call, Jim.

Best things about this back cover:

• Golf. Huh. Didn't see that coming.
• "Out of my way, baby. That breakfast buffet's calling my name."
• This is some pretty low-grade cover copy. I'm at least vaguely familiar with golf terminology, but … can you be "in" par? Is that a recognizable play on words, or just faux-sensational nonsense?

Page 123~

I remember the gulp and the moisture in my eyes, but I don't remember what I said. 

"The Gulp and the Moisture" was, of course, Norman Mailer's far, far less successful follow-up to "The Naked and the Dead."

~RP

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Paperback 744: Wild Town / Jim Thompson (Signet 1461)

Paperback 744: Signet 1461 (PBO, 1957)

Title: Wild Town
Author: Jim Thompson
Cover artist: Robert ***ing Maguire!

Yours for: $65


Best things about this cover:

• It's pretty much the quintessential cover. It's the first book I brought home (almost 20 years ago now) that made me feel like I had committed; I was really doing this; I was a collector. I got into paperback collecting because of Polito's Thompson biography, with its B&W repros of all Thompson's Lion paperback originals from the '50s. The idea that I actually owned a first edition J.T.—however mauled (and it is mauled)—was mind-blowing to me. I spent more than I should have, as I often did when buying books from my earliest dealer (what's up, Kaleidoscope?), but I Did Not (and Do Not) Care. 
• Robert Maguire is the greatest paperback cover artist of all time and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, despite my being highly averse to violence of all kinds. That is how much I care about this subject.
• I'm not even sure how you *get* a book to tear like that. It's like some drunk person decided to see if he could tear it in half, after failing to get anywhere with the phone book, and then got distracted immediately after starting. Gash runs from spine to dead center of the cover and appears to affect many of the first pages. The effect on readability, however, as well as overall book tightness, is nil.
• "Are you suffering from migraines brought on by stress, hormones, or the occasional dead guy in your oil field?! We've all been there, right ladies?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Put up or shut up, Job!
• Hey look—competent, genuinely engaging cover copy! Huzzah.
• It's your classic sheriff-meets-beautiful-tramp-of-a-wife story. I'm sure it all ends well.

Page 123~

Her head moved irritably against the pillows. She took a deep breath and held it; then, slowly let it out again in a quiet sigh of surrender.
"All right, Bugs," she said. "All right, darling. You don't trust me, but I'll still—"
"Out with it!"
"I want you to kill him. I want you to kill my husband!"

So, spoiler alert, I guess.

~RP

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Paperback 741: Lady in Peril / Lester Dent // Wired for Scandal / Floyd Wallace (Ace Double D-357)

Paperback 741: Ace D-357 (PBO /PBO?)

Title: Lady in Peril / Wired for Scandal
Author: Lester Dent / Floyd Wallace
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Nice, ominous, off-kilter, killer-POV shot. 
• She has incredibly good posture for someone about to be brutally murdered. Style points for erect bearing and dramatic hand placement.
• This painting is like a giant metaphor for "No Means No"—What part of "Do Not Enter" do you not understand!?
• Lester Dent helped create the pulp hero Doc Savage.

Best things about this other cover:

• LOVE the design on this one. Strategic bursts of red against a semi-abstract green/white background. Nice variation on the floating head motif. Green rectangle with the tagline "Tune In And Die" brings balance and drama. 
• Those guys are amazing dancers. Shake those hips, boys!
• I kind of dress like the victim but I secretly aspire to dress like the killer.

Page 123~

"Can I look around?"
"Look, but keep your prints to yourself."
"I left some last night."

"If you know what I mean…"

~RP

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Paperback 682: The Temptress / Carter Brown (Signet S1817)

Paperback 682: Signet S1817 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Temptress
Author: Carter Brown
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• That is some spectacular cleavage. The "the" looks like it wants to go hide in there.
• This "standing woman / dead man" cover is a type. I feel the need to go back and tag all the others "SWDM"—it says everything about the ambivalent erotics of vintage paperback cover art.
• That font is sassy. It doesn't scare me, though. Looks like the opening credits of a '60s sitcom.

Best things about this back cover:

• I'm confused by "just." It assumes a baseline opinion that "murder" is a pretty word. It's a horrendously ugly word.
• So Chandler writes "Trouble Is My Business" and then for decades other writers / copyeditors copy, parody, and generally dead-horse the hell out of that phrase.
• LOVE that we can see here what important cultural touchstones "Peyton Place" and "Lolita" were for the late '50s/early '60s world. 
• "An August Signet Paper Edition"—"August" ... like, the adjective? That is unexpected. In fact, just plain weird. Also, likely, not true.

Page 123~

"Yeah," he nodded. "She had the pictures and we burned 'em. We didn't know there was more of them—figured they were the only ones he had!"

Incriminating photos / blackmail schemes are the topic of 59.8% of all hard-boiled stories. Give or take.

~RP

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Paperback 674: The Red House Mystery / A. A. Milne (Dell D321)

Paperback 674: Dell D321 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Red House Mystery (The Dell Great Mystery Library Number 25)
Author: A. A. Milne
Cover artist: William Teason

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Bored? High? Dead? High? Mannequin?
• Yes, that A. A. Milne.
• You might remember this as one of the mystery novels that Chandler absolutely decimates in "The Simple Art of Murder"

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmm. Key porn.
• The nightmarish carpet pattern continues.
• "The Dell Great Mystery Library" was decidedly conservative, their covers respectable and dull.

Page 123~

In the time at his disposal, he could have done no more than put it away in a drawer, where it would be much more open to discovery by Antony than if he had kept it in his pocket.

The "it," of course, is a tube of KY—the slipperiest McGuffin.

~RP

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Paperback 601: Ace Double D-347 (1st ptg / PBO)

Title: Play For Keeps / The Corpse Without a Country
Authors: Harry Whittington / Louis Trimble
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Perspective!
• Other shoe!?
• Come on, Vogue!
• Garters!?!?! Even in imminent-death, sexy as hell.
• I am very, very, very distracted by the placement of his pinky finger / left side of his hand.
• Is that Fear Hand or Buh-Bye Hand?
• "GOOD"!!! LOL x a million.

Best things about this other cover:

• Death Is A Sexy Southern Belle Raining Fuchsia Death From Above.
• The Corpse Had Womanly Hips.
• Actually, that looks like me coming out of savasana at the end of yoga class.

Page 123~

"I should have killed you. I knew. When you came in. You'd figured it. I knew. I saw it in your face."

"Too bad, Tony. It's all too bad."

Too Bad Tony would be a great nickname. Also, "It's all too bad, Tony" would be the closing aria if this were a musical / opera.

~RP

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Paperback 599: Wild Drums Beat / F. Van Wyck Mason (Pocket Books 977)

Paperback 599: Pocket Books 977 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Wild Drums Beat
Author: F. Van Wyck Mason
Cover artist: Richard Cardiff

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "Uh ... he was like this when I found him."
• "Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting wabbits..."
• Real men make snow angels "Indian-style."
• Margery made the rather large mistake of trying to ride the Black Horse of Death sidesaddle. 

Best things about this back cover:

• "Renegade trapper" would look great on a business card.
• Random trivia: Googling ["scalp-hungry"] returns 4100+ hits. So ... it's an adjective with a life beyond this cover.
• Remember when men's courage and women's love could solve world problems? And now look at us. Lousy Obama.

Pag 123~

He nodded, mimicked the shadow of his head wrought black and distorted upon the lean-to's roof.

Grammatically, I'm not really sure what to do with this (how do you mimic a shadow that you yourself are creating?), but I do love a good lean-to reference.

~RP

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Paperback 597: The Blackbirder / Dorothy B. Hughes (Dell 149)

Paperback 597: Dell 149 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Blackbirder
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover artist: Uncredited [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I'm no ornithologist, but ... blackbird? Really? Is there a purple-taloned raptor variety I'm not aware of?
• Those are the most intestinal-looking talons I've ever seen. 
• I hope that guy's dead, because otherwise—that crotch-talon, ouch.
• His feet are so dainty. If I don't look at his weird facial expression, I could almost feel moved by his unfortunate circumstances.

Best things about this back cover:

• Well clearly the best things is Jacques (not pictured).
• Ironically, Popin didn't like it when people just popped in. This is why he lives in the middle of fucking nowhere, with only Jacques to ... do whatever Jacques does.
• I like the geographical / regional touches: snow, mountains, adobe house ...

Page 123~

Her skirt was a thin sheet of ice from below her hips.

Well, that's one way to call a woman 'frigid,' I guess.

~RP

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Paperback 585: A Dram of Evil / D.J. Olson (Award Books A285X)

Paperback 585: Award Books A285X (PBO, 1967)

Title: A Dram of Evil
Author: D.J. Olson
Cover artist: allworkandnoplaymakesJackadullboy

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• If I'd had any hand in decorating that room, I'd've hanged myself too. "Living nightmare," indeed.
• Grandma got run over by a reindeer ... and then she lay down on this bed and bled out.
• This cover is making me nostalgic for "Harold & Maude."
• I want to live in a world where more things are done "in the BABY JANE manner." 

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Text. Come on. Enough with the wordy-words.
• Wait ... if the girl had been dead ... Jack Wardlaw would *still* have been a murderer. What am I missing?
• I want to live in a world where more things are "personified by Boyd Hanover."
• Oooh, a *black* web of evil. Nice. I was expecting mauve.

Page 123~

The room was dark and humid and I caught myself actually sniffing the air like an animal, as if wary of his scent.

"Actually" is the definition of unnecessary in this sentence. I'm sure you'd like some fantastically withering comment here, after my month+-long hiatus, but all I've got is my inner editor going "oh, hell no. Cut!"

~RP

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