Paperback 1147: Lord Edgware Dies / Agatha Christie (Fontana Books 719)

Paperback 1147: Fontana 719 (5th ptg, 1962)

Title: Lord Edgware Dies

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8/10

Value: $20

[Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, August 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• OK so I have a theory about how Lord Edgware dies
• I love this woman. I love her hat and her veil and her refusal to let anything (anything!) else be in the picture except her. I want to marry this woman, I'm sure it would be fine
• If I see British vintage paperbacks, or any non-US vintage paperbacks, and they're in any kind of condition, I buy them. This one was part of a massive Christie haul that I took out of Autumn Leaves a couple months back. So, yeah, prepare for a Christie onslaught!

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Was it really she who committed the murder?" Me, looking at front cover: "Yeah, pretty sure."
• Actually, if you ask "was it really she who committed the murder?" on the damned back cover, I'm gonna rule out precisely one person as the murderer. Thanks a lot.
• Shoulda called it Poirot Probes Industriously. Everybody dies, but how many probe industriously? Bloody few, I'd say.
• The layout here is inexcusably messy. Non-indented, non-separated paragraphs, all crammed down low on the page. And "effects a startling denouement"?! Were Brits just not fluent in pulp patter? You're selling murder mysteries here, not reviewing Chekhov, come on!

Page 123~

"I do not play games. You know that. Murder is not a game. It is serious. And anyway, Hastings, you should not use that phrase—playing the game. It is not said anymore. I have discovered that. It is dead. Young people laugh when they hear it. Mais oui, young beautiful girls will laugh at you if you say 'playing the game' and 'not cricket.'"

Wait, you mean 'not cricket' is out of style!? Since 1933!? No wonder young beautiful girls are always laughing at me!

~RP

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Paperback 668: Fiona / Catherine Gaskin (Fontana 2958)

Paperback 668: Fontana 2958 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: Fiona
Author: Catherine Gaskin
Cover artist: Uncredited [Renato Fratini]

Yours for: Not For Sale (gift to the collection from Laurie Gagne)


Best things about this cover:

• The drugs they gave her for her root canal were really, really good.
• Are you there God, it's me, sexy drugged-out plantation lady.
• If you can figure out what the hell is happening in the background with the people and the running and what not, you have better eyes and interpretive skills than I do.

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel should've been called "Dangerous Currents." That, or "Plantation Fantasies To Masturbate By."
• It's pretty impressive how this description manages to make "emancipation" seem like a species of orgasm.
• Woman's Journal—the journal read by just one woman.

Page 123~

"Before he was ill—before Maria and that rotten weed she gave him to smoke—that, and the rum—he was a clever manager."

Plantation romances are not really my cup of tea, but I am suddenly interested in Maria and her rotten weed.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 7

Title: Death in a White Tie (Fontana Books, 1960)
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Cover artist: John L. Baker (or is that the book owner's signature in the bottom left corner?)

Yours for: make an offer

• New Zealand in the House!
• Uh, that tie is not white.
• Henry was busy entertaining no one with his drunken soft shoe routine when the Rolls Royce came creeping around the corner.
• I contend that there is no way Henry can see that car, despite the fact that he *appears* to be looking at it.
• I would say that Henry looks like he's sliding across a newly waxed floor, but in fact he appears to be levitating.

• Whoa! That is not the author pic I'd use to sell pulp fiction. She looks like she's dreamily recalling the Good Old Days (i.e. the reign of Queen Victoria).
• LOVE the apostrophe-as-abbreviation marker on 'PHONE. Marsh was always so street, always hip to the lingo of kids those days, etc.

Page 123~

"The ball was a great success, I believe."
"Yes. Lady Carrados was born under a star of hospitality. It is always a source of wonderment to me why one ball should be a great success and another offering the same band, caterer and guests an equally great failure."

It is always a source of wonderment to me that anyone ever found aristocrats inherently interesting.

~RP

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