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 942: Q.B.I. / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 1118)

Paperback 942: Pocket Books 1118 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Q.B.I.
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover design: Milton Herder

Estimated value: $5-8
Condition: 5/10

Best things about this cover:

• It's like the F.B.I. but queer. I imagine.
• This cover wins awards for "Most Visible Thumbprint" and "Best Kempt Cilia"
• Where can I get one of these switchblade micro-monocles? Judging by this guy's pupil dilation, they seem fun.

Best things about this back cover:

• Type script is best.
• No Nouns Allowed Without Adjectival Guardian
• Kid Naping. That word *never* looks right to me.

Page 123~ (first line of "Dying Message Dept.: G. I. Story")

Ellery swung off the Atlantic State Express in his favorite small town disguised by earlaps, muffler, and skis, resolved that this time nothing should thwart his winter holiday.

You'll Never Guess What Happens Next! (spoiler: holiday thwarted)

~RP

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Paperback 901: The Queen's Awards / Ed. Ellery Queen (Perma Books M-3015)

Paperback 901: Perma Books M-3015 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Queen's Awards
Editor: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: William George

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• Hunting Che Fear Hand Strangulation Revolutionary Ponytail! I love this story!
• Those frames are a bit ... ornate. That said, I'd kill for a real-life version of Strangulation in Red, frame and all.
• Ellery Queen was a pseudonym for these guys. Also the name of the main character in their novels.

Best things about this back cover:

• I give the opening alliterative salvo a C-.
• "Anyway you like your murders..." is a phrase that bespeaks a certain Coliseum-esque savagery in the typical mystery story audience.
• Eleazar Lipsky wrote the story that was the basis of the film noir classic "Kiss of Death" (1947).

Page 123~ [From "The Stroke of Thirteen" by Lillian de la Torre ("as told by James Boswell, August 1780") (!?!?!)]

"The ingenious Captain Donellan," replied Dr. Johnson, "is a disciple of Linnaeus. He grows the oriental poppy. With that cord-handled claw by his tent he sacrifices the capsule of the poppy, as I have been told they do it in the East Indies where he served. He collects the gum that forms. To put a name to it, it is opium. I smelled opium in the affair when I was informed that Allan MacDonald had been hearing 'sounds colored crimson,' as drugged men may do."

18th-century drug-induced synesthesia! Who saw that coming?

~RP

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Paperback 867: The Dutch Shoe Mystery / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 2202)

Paperback 867: Pocket Books 2202 (11th ptg, 1958)

Title: The Dutch Shoe Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Jerry Allison

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• This cover says a lot of things, but one of the things it does *not* say is "Dutch Shoe."
• "But she could be number! NUMBER!"
• Pretty sure that's not a regulation police hold—at least not with gun drawn. Does look cool, though.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, signed by quote-unquote Ellery Queen. How elegant.
• "The patient was rich Abigail Doorn, whose money ran the hospital." Yeah, see, you would never introduce anyone "rich so-and-so," and also "whose money ran the hospital" kind of covers that.
• Also maybe don't put "more than life-size portrait of a heroic doctor" next to a super-tiny portrait of a doctor.

Page 123~

Djuna leaped out of his kitchen at the shrill br-r-ring of the telephone bell. "For you, Dad Queen."

I really, really want to believe that a Dad Queen is some kind of sex thing. Something men named "Djuna" would be in to. Please don't shatter my illusions, thanks.

~RP

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Paperback 723: Death Spins the Platter / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 6126)

Paperback 723: Pocket Books 6126 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Death Spins the Platter
Author: Ellery Queen (ghost-written by Richard Deming)
Cover artist: Al Brulé

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• And the award for worst mixed metaphor goes to …
• I'm the DJ, he's the Piper?
• Quit getting your grubby thumbprints all over the vinyl, lady. Unless it's one of them there braille records and you are deaf, in which case, carry on.
• Looming background head is the best.

Best things about this back cover:

• I now want to name everything "Tutter King." 
• Because King Tut was taken?
• No one tutted better than he! Nary a one!

Page 123~

"Did you find fingerprints on the ice pick?"

'
~RP

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Paperback 646: People vs. Withers & Malone / Stuart Palmer & Craig Rice (Award Books A146F)

Paperback 646: Award Books A146F (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: People vs. Withers & Malone
Author: Craig Rice & Stuart Palmer
Cover artist: Uncredited / Clip art?

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer document their early experiments with sexual role-playing games. "Wait, I forget, am I 'Withers' or 'Malone' in this scenario?" Speaking of role-playing, "Craig Rice" is male-sounding pseudonym for female author Georgiana Ann Craig. I own a nice copy of a book she ghost-wrote for actor George Sanders. (Here's a nice write-up about Rice at "Pulp Serenade")
• Or maybe the parrot is 'Withers' and the cougar is 'Malone', in which case I am hoping for a break-out and then serious carnage. Malone can do the killing, while Withers provides narration. "[Squawk!], he's got your eyeball! Got your eyeball! [Squawk!]"
• I hope the artist got paid the $0.75 he was owed for this "painting."
• I keep looking at this book and seeing "An Insane Rectum Mystery."

Best things about this back cover:

• God, paperback book design just went to $^#%ing hell in the mid-'60s. Not in all instances, but in many. See virtually every Travis McGee novel. So much potential, so much ugh.
• I love that Artzybasheff is someone's name. Some *artist's* name.
• I love that "Ellery Queen" (itself a pseudonym) refers to the mid-'60s as "these unfunny days." I can only guess what he means, but I love an author who believes his own time has gone to hell. Also, from a crime novel / crime movie perspective, the mid-60s were (with some very notable exceptions [cough] Parker [cough]) pretty dire.

Page 123~

"Blue sea!" cried Malone. "I told her her eyes were as blue as the sea! That was Luke Swenson's sister, Little Helga, a queen-size Viking goddess! I am in love with her, practically!"

"Practically!" So few people exclaim their hedge words! Nice.

~RP

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Paperback 338: Dead Man's Tale / Ellery Queen [Stephen Marlowe] (Pocket Books 6117)

Paperback 337: Pocket Books 6117 (PBO 1961)

Title: Dead Man's Tale
Author: Ellery Queen (ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "He ... he was out picking tulips and his sabots slipped and he hit her head on a windmill blade, which caused him to choke on some edam. I do not know how we ended up underwater. Dike broke, I suppose."
• This title is superlame.
• Never would have known this was ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe if I hadn't gotten on Abe Books to check prices. There's a signed copy available there in which Marlowe writes "Just this once..."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Hacha" sounds like some kind of drink you'd order at a hipster café in Brooklyn.
• This plot sounds interesting. I really want to know what they're going to tell Hacha once they find him. It better have something to do with a dead man, or a windmill. Otherwise, total ripoff.

Page 123~

Then they heard Lou Goody tramping up the hill.

And I thought "Barney Street" was a good name.

~RP

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Paperback 321: Wicked Women / ed. Lee Wright (Pocket 1263)

Paperback 321: Pocket 1263 (PBO, 1960)

Title: A Butcher's Dozen of Wicked Women
Editor: Lee Wright
Cover artist: Morgan Kane

Yours for: SOLD!


Best things about this cover:

• If they'd just get rid of the text and let me see what she's looking at, this cover would be perfect.
• Great Girl Art, Girl With Gun, Gams Galore, all overlooking a cityscape. I live for covers like this. Subtle, sexy, delicious. Her arm position, her hip cock ... perfect. If I woke up in a hotel room and *this* is what I saw when I looked over at the balcony, I could die a happy man.
• Problem: the painting gives off an urban, hard-boiled vibe. Those authors ... do not. I mean, they're fine, if you like more traditional mysteries, but the ones I recognize are somewhat cozier than authors I tend to read. There *is* a Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald) story inside. Not sure why he's not on the cover, as he is pretty well established at the time of this book's release.

Best things about this back cover:

• Cool '60s design — vaguely rectangular swatches of different bright colors arranged in asymmetrical relationship to one another — continued from front cover.
• I'm torn between the practical Lucy and the vengeful Daihili.

Page 123~

from "Suspicion," by Dorothy L. Sayers

He sipped it thoughtfully, standing by the kitchen stove. After the first sip, he put the cup down. Was it his fancy, or was there something queer about the taste? He sipped it again, rolling it upon his tongue. It seemed to him to have a faint tang, metallic and unpleasant. In a sudden dread he ran out to the scullery and spat the mouthful into the sink.

I read one novel by Sayers and the mystery (or rather, its solution) was So preposterous that I never read another. I will say, however, that the woman knows her way around a sentence. She translated Dante, after all.

~RP

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Paperback 143: Double, Double / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 874)

Paperback 143: Pocket Books 874 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Double, Double
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Betty's audition for Macbeth was cut violently short...
• Betty's voracious appetite for men's hands knew no limits...
• Extreme Chiropractics!
• Honestly, this is one of the most vivid and memorable covers in my collection. I want to read the book just to figure out what he's doing to her (or vice versa)

Best things about this back cover:

• Super pastel rectangles. Love them.
• "Town Hermit" - is that an official position? It's capitalized!
• There is a "little" too much use of "scare" quotes on this back "cover.
• It seems a little odd that the selling point of this mystery is that it includes SEVEN murders (arbitrary?) and that there were NO CLUES - what the hell does "Double, Double" have to do with anything? This should have been called "Seven Murders, No Clues"

Page 123~

Now the last lingering bong was gone and Dakin was his proper hatchet self again, and Ellery said, "So," like little Hercule Poirot, and he went over and shut one of the windows, shivering.

This may be my favorite "Page 123" sentence ever, if only for "the last lingering bong."

~RP

Paperback 80: Kiss and Kill / Ellery Queen (Dell 4567)

Paperback 80: Dell 4567 (PBO, 1969)

Title: Kiss and Kill
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

YOURS FOR: SOLD! (mid-August, 2008)


Best things about this cover:

• "That's right, Skipper. You got me. I killed Mary Ann. I wanted all you luscious men for myself. Is that so wrong?"
• She has peach talons.
• McGinnis women are often quite sexy, but this one - yikes. Icy, bored, mannish, and clownishly bewigged.
• The saddest thing about this cover is that McGinnis's particular specialty was the, er, lower half of women; alas, that part remains hidden here behind some kind of bedsheet drapery.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, same picture. Come on! Although here, she appears to be saying "... you talkin' to me?"
• "Barney Burgess" - that's up there in the "Hilarious Detective Names" pantheon.

RP