Paperback 1124: The Removers / Donald Hamilton (Gold Medal s1082)

Paperback 1124: Gold Medal s1082 (PBO, 1961)

Title: The Removers

Author: Donald Hamilton

Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 6/10 (crease down the middle of the cover)

Value: $6-10

Best things about this cover: 

• Another day, another Barye Phillips Gold Medal cover that is disappointingly sketchy. Why is this there so much unused space? Why is the woman so small? Bah!
• Also: another day, another implausible color of "red" on the "red"head. That's like Ronald McDonald "red," come on.
• On the other hand, love what the cover is doing with the "V" motif here—extending it up to provide space for the tagline, but also using it as a visual representation of the (imagined) gunshot. The whole "V" is like a speech bubble for the gun. A blast bubble.
• I also dig this groovy sixties font.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Interesting continuation of the "V" motif onto the back cover, extending and transforming it here into the top part of an exclamation point, with Helm himself as the emphatic dot!
• Gold Medal mostly didn't bother with the blurbs from "legitimate" press—you sell these books with Great Girl Art (GGA) and author reputation, not critic blurbs—but I guess if the critics love you, you can try to appeal to the eggheads who would otherwise be embarrassed to be seen reading 35c books.
• "A Creature of Sweetness and Havoc" would, I must admit, be a great crime novel title.

Page 123~

I put the phone down. I was looking at Beth, but for some reason I was seeing a long, low, green car—the color is known as British Racing Green—hurtling across the Arizona desert with that fine, wicked sound that you get only from high-class machinery that's really carrying the mail. Barring the true racing cars, the Jaguar is possibly, along with its American counterpart the Corvette, the most ridiculous vehicle made, from the viewpoint of efficient and economical transportation. You've got power enough to move a ten-ton truck attached to a loadspace barely adequate for two men and a small toothbrush. But it's an ego-satisfying machine in every respect [...]

OK, I've never read a Donald Hamilton novel before (that I can recall), but this stretch of prose actually makes me want to. I love an author who'll just do a funny little plot-irrelevant aside like this. Chandler was at his best when he'd let Marlowe do this sort of thing. Gonna throw a Hamilton novel onto the "summer vacation reading" list (already in danger of getting too long)

~RP

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Paperback 1123: Miss America / Daniel Stern (Popular Library G464)

Paperback 1123: Popular Library G464 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Miss America

Author: Daniel Stern

Cover artist: [Mitchell Hooks]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Now that's a redhead. That hair's so orange it's pink.
• Wow, this lady really likes stationery.   
• This is a movie tie-in. I've never heard of this movie. What's more, I cannot find any proof that this movie exists, or ever existed. Nothing by this name appears in Carroll Baker's filmography, and nothing she made in this general time period seems to have been based on this novel. I have no idea why they'd say there was a movie when there is no movie. I feel like I've uncovered a mystery. Possibly a very boring one, but still. Mystery!

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, not to be that guy, but ... well, I am that guy, so ... it's The Beautiful and Damned, not The Beautiful and the Damned, dammit. This blurb is not up to the lofty editorial standards I expect from the ... [squints] ... Lansing State News.
• "Her most intimate statistics were common knowledge." What could her "most intimate statistics" be? What are anyone's "most intimate statistics?" Number of sex partners? Bra size? Cholesterol? 
• This back cover copy tells you precisely nothing except that there's some hot celebrity "goddess" and she ... has a life ... not covered by the press. You don't say!

Page 123~

Just before we rang the bell, Cathy turned to me and said, "I've got a confession to make. You know that first night, when you played those quartets? I came expecting to hear jazz quartets. I thought I'd fall down when you started taking out the string instruments."

String instruments!? Well, sure, that's enough to make anyone fall down. I'm writing this from the floor right now, and that's just from hearing about it.

~RP

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Paperback 1122: The Bloody Medallion / Richard Telfair (Gold Medal d1665)

Paperback 1122: Gold Medal d1665 (2nd ptg, 1966)

Title: The Bloody Medallion

Author: Richard Telfair (Richard Jessup)

Cover artist: Bill Johnson

Condition: 6/10    

Value: $6-8

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• Buddy! It's OK, buddy, I just walked into the wrong room, I'm leaving now. Good dog.
• More dogs on covers! More, I say!
• I know there is an attractive naked lady on this cover, but ... puppy!
• That dog is looking directly at me. I have no idea what the lady is looking at.
• Is she bathing ... in a six-inch-deep hole? What kind of bathtub is that? It looks like she's standing in a flooded bathroom. Maybe she's supposed to be outdoors? Seriously, where are we in this picture?
• Look at them try to trick you into thinking this is a Sax Rohmer novel. I've never seen a blurb writer's name get displayed more prominently than that of the author. And they made Sax's name red like the title, too. Crafty marketers...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Blood stains? That's it? Abstract red splatters? Where's buddy? I miss buddy.
• Gay revenge story! (I'm just gonna assume "best friend" is a euphemism). Love it! 
• Seriously, putting it on the "to read" pile. I love a good (or even bad) revenge tale. Telfair's name rings a bell, but I'm not sure why. Richard Jessup seems to have written a half dozen or so crime paperbacks under this name in the span of about four years (1959-62).

Page 123~

    "Strip," I said.

    Dutifully he began taking off his clothes. When he was nude, I ordered him to the water's edge.

I'm just gonna stop there. It's sexier that way.

~RP

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Paperback 1120: Long Shot / David Mark (Dell D300)

Paperback 1120: Dell D300 (1st ptg., 1959)

Title: Long Shot

Author: David Mark

Cover artist: Bob McGinnis [apparently misattributed] Mitchell Hooks

Condition: 6.5 or 7/10

Value: $8-10

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• God bless my wife for discovering that the bookstore we were rummaging around last week in Geneva, NY had cabinets running the length of the floor (closed!) that contained $1 books. We both of us dropped to our knees and started combing over the inventory. We emerged with five good-to-great books, absolute steals at $1. This is one of them, maybe the best of them, where the cover is concerned. You can't go wrong with McGinnis [I'm told the attribution to McGinnis is a mistake, and that the artist is actually Mitchell Hooks ... whom you also can't go wrong with]. This is top-shelf GGA (Great Girl Art). Her smoky sideways glance and akimbo arm (not to mention her Fantastic green dress and orange coat) give this cover tremendous curb appeal.
• The contrast between her (foreground) and the shadowy dude at the betting window (background) creates great dynamic tension in the cover. Doubt it would work half so well if *he* were in the foreground.
• Who needs a silly thing like decency when you've got a rotten little tramp and the sick excitement of a gambling addiction!
• Long Shot is so much better than The Long Chance (the original title). Whoever was in charge of marketing at Dell really knew what they were doing here.
• Seriously, her ensemble is on fire.

Best things about this back cover: 

• I'm sorry, is his name really "Loeser?" Kind of on-the-nose for a noir-style sap, don't you think? 
• HUSBAND ... LOVER ... BELOVED? I think I get what's going on with Ruth and Katy, but Carol ... I have questions about Carol.
• I have this nagging feeling that things don't end well for Mr. Loeser. That description of what it feels like for him to be at the track is striking, and strikingly like the feelings associated with other addictions, notably alcoholism.

Page 123~

    "Fight back!" roared the straight-backed man with the gray mustache (why did everyone have to roar?), "you have to learn to fight back."

    "Yes, sir."

    "You want to be a man, don't you?"

    "I guess so."

    "You want to be a good soldier, don't you?"

    "I don't think so."

    "Well, speak up, lad, what do you want to be?"

    Rick tried again. "Alive," he said.

~RP

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Paperback 1101: Slipping Beauty / Jerome Weidman (Avon 322)

 Paperback 1101: Avon 322 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Slipping Beauty

Author: Jerome Weidman

Cover artist: [Ray Johnson]

Condition: 8/10 (cover kind of warps away from the pages at the corners a bit, but otherwise square and bright)

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• When you're in the theater with your children and suddenly realize you've misread the marquee... "Mommy, that lady's not sleeping ... mommy ... can I get a cigarette holder?"
• This is really first-rate girl art. I love this dame: sexy, bored, comfortable in her sexy boredness. He does a good job with her body & profile but he does an even better job with her whole Attitude. High-end hardboiled.
• I like the palette on this cover, too. Real cool. The icy blue is unusual, and complements the pinkish lingerie and flesh tones really well.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Loooooove a good author photo, and this one is good. Gotta be smoking, of course, but I love how this is less author photo and more cover adornment. He's *this* close to looking like a logo.
• LOL those *eternal* ellipses in the New York Times quotation. Like the reviewer is thinking of something diplomatic to say and is like "... uh ... meaty? ..."
• "Cataloguer of heels"—if I were Weidman, I'd put that on my business card *immediately*

Page 123~ (from "Everybody Wants to Be a Lady")

Well, my husband Mac, he's the nicest fellah you ever wanna meet and all that, but when it comes to things like this, God bless him, if you don't put the words in his mouth, he don't know what to say.

Ah, to live in a time when people said "fellah" and spelled it with an "h." Glory days. 

~RP

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Paperback 1098: Madball / Fredric Brown (Dell First Edition 2E)

 Paperback 1098: Dell First Edition 2E (PBO, 1953)

Title: Madball

Author: Fredric Brown

Cover artist: Griffith Foxley

Condition: 6-7/10

Value: $25

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• If I were a lady I would buy these pajamas (both colors) and sleep in them every night. Not sure how I feel about the capes, but the pajamas are hot.
• Most of the stuff I was eyeballing at The Book Den was a little on the pricy side (for me—I tend to be cheap and will only pay collector prices if the book is Really desirable and/or the condition is very good). But this book ... I feel lucky to have found a copy in the wild at all. I mean, you can order it on abebooks or whatever, but where's the fun in that? And I still got it for less than it's probably worth. But beyond the whole question of "Value" there's the book, a beautiful early Dell First Edition by a masterful, versatile, often hilarious writer. The book's a bit worn, but it's tight and complete. Got that slightly soft, highly read feel. I love a well read paperback. A really broken-in paperback. This book just screams Everything Good About the Midcentury Paperback. The dings and and creases give it character. In short, I'm very happy with this purchase. Very.
• Griffith Foxley's covers are always so ... creamy. Just a great painter of people. The girls look great, but I'm especially fond of the dopey-looking guy in the hat just slack-jawed gawking at the girls, as well as the square-jawed huckster in the boater and bow tie, carnival-barking into the mic with his whole damn body.
• "They're all alive inside!" is so enigmatic! I mean, are these girls robots? Or had there been rumors going around that everyone who went into the tent earlier had been murdered? "Those guys are still alive, fellas! That screaming you heard ... a chicken, I think. Anyway, step right up!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Copy writer is on point today! Working that alliteration like his job depended on it. "The pitchmen and the pickled punks, the cotton candy and the kewpie dolls ... all-night alibis!"
• Well that is *one* way to pluralize "carny."
• "Can I take you home? Where do you live?" "You know Frenzy?" "Sure." "Well it's close to the edge of there." "How close?" "Too close." "Hmm. You know, I think the buses are still running. Or ... can I call you a cab?"

Page 123~

He'd pushed the brakeman off the moving train in sudden anger, the same blind anger that had made him strike Sammy last night. And he hadn't really meant to kill the lush he rolled, just to make him unconscious would've been enough. But they were murders just the same. They'd have fried him for either one.

That's the problem with lushes. So fragile. The law should really take that into consideration, you know? But carceral state's gonna carceral state, amirite? Yeah I'm right. Hey, pass me the Madball, I'm gonna see if it'll tell me where to eat tonight ...

~RP

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Paperback 1096: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M-3043)

Paperback 1096: Perma Books M-3043 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Red Harvest

Author: Dashiell Hammett

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 8/10

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• More like Red Housecoat! Just an amazing garment.
• "Say 'candy cane' again. I dare you. I double dare you, motherfucker. Say 'candy cane' one more goddamn time!"
• The geometry of this interaction is mesmerizing. The hand triangle! Her left hand and her right cross and his "fear hand"—so much intense hand drama. Plus that look of complete contempt on her face ... god bless you, Lou Marchetti, king among cover artists!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Not sure whose idea it was to put the "-DER" over the "WHO-" but it was not a good one.
• This is a fairly succinct and vivid account of a thing that actually happens in the book. It does make me want to read the book. Nothing fancy going on back here, but in terms of drumming up interest in the story, mission accomplished.
• I miss laudanum. And ice picks. Do people still do laudanum and kill with ice picks? Inebriation and murder were just *better* in the old days, man.

Page 123~

    "Reno and his mob were in the can. Reno was Yard's pup, but he didn't mind crossing up his head-man. He already had the idea that he was about ready to take the berg away from Lew." I turned to Reno and asked: "Isn't that it?"

    He looked at me woodenly and said: "You're telling it."

    I continued telling it. 

I love how much Hammett loves hardboiled slang. Always got the tough-guy patter down pat. This is what makes Hammett so enthralling—a great ear for dialogue, which makes the whole criminal scene feel dramatic and authentic. 

~RP

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Paperback 1095: Man-Killer / Talmage Powell // Running Scared / Bob McKnight (Ace D-469)

 Paperback 1095: Ace D-469 (PBO / PBO, 1960)

Title: Man-Killer / Running Scared

Author: Talmage Powell / Bob McKnight

Cover artist: Rudy Nappi / Rudy Nappi (signature visible)

Condition: 8 or 9/10

Value: $30

Best things about this cover: 

• "You've had your breakfast of canned baked beans and coffee, now get out of my yellow house! Don't make me have to hold this gun properly!"
• She and that rifle sure seem, uh, friendly.
• This is one of the greatest fuck-off power poses I've ever seen on a paperback cover. I do believe she would, in fact, kill a man, possibly several.
• "The Lady's For Hanging" yeah good luck with that

Best things about this back cover: 

• Crawling Scared!
• "Murder On My Heels ... hey, where the hell are my heels, anyway? Must've lost 'em when I crawled through the swamp in my underwear oh well"
• The Ghost of Lee Marvin is very disappointed in your push-up technique

Page 123~ (from Man-Killer)

    The man paused at the mouth of the alley, a big, brawny shadow. I saw him stiffen. He was staring at the white blob of my face in the infiltrating light. 

    "Calhoun!"

    It was Giles Hustin.

OK, whatever suspense, whatever sense of impending terror you were trying to work up there was immediately and entirely dissipated by "It was Giles Hustin." Giles Hustin is not the name of a man who makes other men quake in fear. Giles Hustin is the name of a man who plays folk music every Thursday from 9 to 10 at The Rusty Skillet. 

Also, I'm worried about Calhoun's face.

~RP

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Paperback 1086: Pipe Night / John O'Hara (Bantam H3104)

 Paperback 1086: Bantam H3104 (1st Bantam, 1966)

Title: Pipe Night

Author: John O'Hara

Cover artist: Avati or a good impersonation thereof

Condition: 7    

Value: $7

[Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, May 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• Absolutely insane depth-of-field. Amazing that you can get so much dramatic weight out of a dude that tiny. Also, I like that I (apparently) *am* the dude. That is a mirror, right? Hey, I look good in a tux! (a claim that cannot be disproven by this cover—the power of tininess!)
• I like the subtle nightmarish quality of this cover. Innocuous situation, but it's floating in pure dreamlike darkness. Also, the mirror looks like it might be a portal to hell. Is that a sexy over-the-shoulder glance, or a mischievous "I'm going through the Infernal Door to live with Satan now" glance.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Tag yourself, I'm FURTIVE ADULTERERS (jk, honey)
• Having fun saying FURTIVE ADULTERERS five times fast
• Public Lies and Private Hells—always a winning formula

Page 123~

[from "Where's the Game?"]

"I'm a salesman."

"Selling what? Papers?" said Wilkey.

"Furniture," said Garfin.

"Furniture. Well, Garfin, I don't want any," said Wilkey.

"That's your privilege," said Garfin.

"That's right. It's my privilege. And you know what else is my privilege? My privilege is I don't like your kisser."

If this were a western, that would be the line that cleared the saloon...

~RP

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Paperback 1080: Maharajah / Richard Cargoe (Popular Library 451)

Paperback 1080: Popular Library 451 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Maharajah

Author: Richard Cargoe

Cover artist: [Raymond Johnson]

Condition: 5/10 (intact, but with split spine)

Value: $6-10

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• At first it looks like he's scratching his chin as he's contemplating his next move, but then you look closer and realize he is nibbling. On a grape. And cupping a whole bunch of grapes in his other hand. And she's like "Yes, you like nibbling on my grapes ... there is much more fruit where that came from ... but I'm going to hold it over here out of view ... I know you are hungry for my fruit, but I will not simply give you the fruit; you are going to have to work for my fruit? I withhold the fruit until you are good and hungry. You are hungry, yes?" Fruit doing a Lot of work on this cover.  
• Dude's eyes are intense, predatory, vaguely insane. They are almost enough to distract you from the bright white shaving brush growing out of his forehead. Almost.
• I love these covers where intense desire is conveyed in a backward glance that totally defies the laws of physics (no way she can see him even peripherally from that angle) but still *feels* smolderingly real.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, Orientalism. How I don't really miss you. The "exotic" natives doing their carnal things in fancy garb, served up for westerners to gawk at. Like the fruit on the front cover, "exotic" is doing a lot of work here (as well as on the front cover!)
• I see how "INTRIGUE IN INDIA" might seem to have some inherent alliterative appeal, but it's really rather dull.
• Tbh I'm kinda invested in the storyline now. Team Tegra, for sure. That Halim guy seems like a jerk I would not like to have a beer with.

Page 123~

They are blackmailing us into a state of perpetual fear. I keep remembering how the tiger clawed off the monkey's limbs one by one. They may murder one person each day—every day they may murder a little closer to the throne. Have you thought of that?

Have I thought of what? I'm still thinking about the monkey. Is he OK? Did he get revenge? You can't just start a tiger/monkey story and then abandon it like that, man. You gotta see it through. Now bring me some fruit and start over.

~RP

P.S. the cover artist is Raymond Johnson. This exact painting was on the cover of Illustration #77, which contains a big article on Johnson:

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Paperback 1079: Jonathan Wild / Henry Fielding (Signet CQ660)

Paperback 1079: Signet CQ660 (1st ptg, 1962) (actually 3rd ptg, year unknown, probably early-mid '70s)

Title: Jonathan Wild

Author: Henry Fielding

Cover artist: Milton Glaser

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

Best things about this cover:

• Another acquisition outside my normal (1939-69) collecting range, but Glaser's covers for Signet are special, so I think I'm going to start making them a special subset of my collection (esp. since they can be found all over and procured for super cheap)
• There's a borderline cartoon quality to Glaser's pop art take on the classics (his most famous work for Signet was the covers of all the Shakespeare plays). Love the intricacy of his designs, and the low-key bawdiness of this particular image—the deep cleavage, the hint of thigh above the stocking, the (I'm guessing) randy bewigged leonine figure standing behind her. . . though if he's randy for anything, it's probably that jewel he's fondling.
• The colors are vibrant and the design on her stockings is absolutely aces. Her shoes are special too.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah! Mere description! 
• I've never read this novel, but the cover copy here is promising. Love the idea of naming your wild-ass main character "Wild." 
• The book is part biography (of an actual criminal), part social satire, part picaresque novel. Honestly, it sounds amazing, and I am tempted to dive right in.
• Is Gin Lane bad? I want to live on Gin Lane. There's gin there, right?

Page 123~

Wild, immediately at his return to town, went to pay a visit to Miss Laetitia Snap, for he had that weakness of suffering himself to be enslaved by women, so naturally incident to men of heroic disposition.

"Suffering himself to be enslaved" is some choice phrasing, but not as choice as the name "Miss Laetitia Snap"—that is an all-time name. The implications of "Snap" are suggestive but ambiguous ... unlike the implications of "Miss Straddle" (p. 88), which seem pretty straightforward.

~RP

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Paperback 1077: Dark Rapture / Kim Darien (Ace S-117)

Paperback 1077: Ace S-117 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Dark Rapture

Author: Kim Darien

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7    

Value: $10-12

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• "My left pinkie? Yeah, I broke that in a horrible bowling accident when I was a kid. Don't worry about it. Here, look at my right hand instead? Nice, right?"
• "Her? Nah, don't mind her, she's just the, uh, cleaning lady. Yeah, she likes to sleep on her smoke break. Does both at once. Sleep and smokes. Saves time."
• The blonde is the very definition of GGA (Great Girl Art), but it's like the painter was really more interested in directing your attention elsewhere—to the corny, chipper dude, yes, but most assuredly to the enigmatically sleep-smoking lady. Frankly, she is the only one whose story I care to know.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book hit me ... and it felt like a kiss.
• Love the visual [rrrrriiiiiipppp] 
• "Simmy knew she'd had a tough break. First of all, she was named Simmy. Strike one ..."
• "Downright swell" and "heel"—the two masculinities

Page 123~

Back under the wheel, Jerry remarked that was the kind of service he liked; service with a smile, the kind you didn't come across too often in the city. "People out here show the customer some courtesy. Swell bunch out here in the sticks, none better." He backed the Buick out of the parking lot.

"Yeah, they got real manners out here in Shitville. Classy bunch of people. Really know how to treat a guy right. Might do all my grocery shopping out here from now on, babe, whaddya say?" Can't tell if this guy is "Downright swell" or more the "Heel" type. Really feels ... latter.

~RP

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Paperback 1074: The Amboy Dukes / Irving Shulman (Avon 169)

Paperback 1074: Avon 169 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Amboy Dukes

Author: Irving Shulman

Cover artist: Ann Cantor

Condition: 7/10

Value: $25-30

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• A Wayward Youth Grows in Brooklyn
• Ooh, I did not know there was a movie tie-in variant cover for this (very famous) JD novel. Oddly thrilling. I mean, not as thrilling as my man's gaudy and shockingly wide tie, but thrilling nonetheless.
• Her eyebrows and his spit curl are Just So. Mwah. Perfect. Great hats, great attitude, just great all around.
• Drew Pearson! Oh sure, I know him, he's a ... [squints] ... noted commentator. Wow. That's a job title right there [runs off to update business cards]

Best things about this back cover:

• "Oh Frankie" "Oh Betty" [swelling music, heaving bosoms, sloppy kissing noises]
• "Frankie and Betty / Were sick of spaghetti / By the summer of seventy-five // They were tired and cold / They were 50 years old / They were barely alive" (thank you for coming to my Billy Joel tribute concert)
• I do like how they give the whole damn cover, edge to edge, over to this dramatically lit picture. I guess this is to prove that the movie is real and not just some weird marketing ploy.

Page 123~

"I love you, Frankie," Betty was hoarse with passion. 

"Will you ever leave me?" whinnied Frankie. "Neigh," hoarsed Betty.

~RP

P.S. I am so happy to be writing this blog regularly again. I do not care at all if the blog ever has a lot of readers, but I would like it to find its audience. Its weirdo niche. So if you ever wanted to hype it, in any way, to your nerdy friends, that would be rad. Thanks. Oh, and comments welcome. I love hearing what you all think of the books. XO

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Paperback 1073: Girl Out Back / Charles Williams (Dell First Edition B114)

Paperback 1073: Dell First Edition B114 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Girl Out Back

Author: Charles Williams

Cover artist: Darcy

Condition: 7/10

Value: $40-50

Best things about this cover:

• Saw this yesterday under glass at the cash register at a used bookstore in Saratoga Springs and impulse-bought it so fast I almost felt guilty. Paid more than I've paid for a vintage paperback in a while and still paid less than what it's worth. It's Charles Williams, after all, and a first edition, and a Beaut!
• What makes a book desirable may be many things, and this book has a bunch of them. Name author. Paperback original. Great Girl Art. Legible artist signature and/or artist credit (this may not be important to everyone, but it is to me!). Only the tiniest of spine leans. A square, tight copy. I could do without the sticker pull on the price (grrr) and the back (as you'll see) has a top-to-bottom crease, but ... I mean, it's pulp fiction, a little wear/tear gives it some character, imo.
• The print and drape of the dress is fantastic. The cover is not as lurid as the ones I tend to gravitate toward, but it's unusual in appealing ways—a Coke bottle instead of a martini glass, a dock instead of a bar, rural instead of urban, day instead of night. The text prods me to lurid imagination, but that's just it—the painting leaves a Lot of room for imagination. Will she brain that guy with her soda bottle and steal his boat? Will she join him on a fishing expedition? Is he actually three inches tall? Is she 100 feet tall? So many possibilities...
• I love the exposed knee, as well as the hint of cleavage. There is something odd about the left hand. Looks boneless. But otherwise, she's very well put together.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks like an eighth-grade science teacher
• If the husband makes it through the novel, I'll be stunned
• OK, the weirdo in me is actually most intrigued by "... and an old hermit for a friend." There's a relationship you don't see every day.
• "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Swamp (After They've Seen Barney Godwin)?"

Page 123~

"No," he said. I noticed there was no "sir" now. "I reckon you wouldn't take no chances with me. Goin' to be quite a feather in your cap when you bring me in, ain't it?"

"I'll probably be promoted," I said. "So you just behave yourself, and none of your slippery tricks."

But it was too late. With a snap of his fingers, Cliffords turned himself into an eel and swam away. I shook my fist in impotent fury. "Damn you, Cliffords! First the banana peel on the prison steps, now this!? When will it end!?"

~RP

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Paperback 1071: Perilous Passage / Arthur Mayse (Pocket Books 727)

Paperback 1071: Pocket Books 727 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Perilous Passage

Author: Arthur Mayse

Cover artist: James Bingham

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Reader Larry D. just sent me a whole box of choice paperbacks. Out of the goodness of his heart. In the interest of, let's say, science! I am over the moon. We will all be the beneficiaries of his generosity, as I showcase books from his donation in the coming weeks, starting with today's stunner—a chaotic close-up composition featuring nautical mayhem and what appears to be a pretty severe case of mal de mer. Or maybe that guy just swooned. Maybe he's afraid. Can we call that hand on his brow a "Fear Hand"? I think we can. I think I will.
• "How was I to know when I broke my boat mirror that my luck would turn so bad...?"
• The gunwoman here seems like a plucky, take-charge kind of gal, I love her. The gun looks a little warped or wonky somehow, but her face! It's all business. I would not f*** with someone making that face.
• I like how you have to kind of sit with this painting for a while to figure just what the hell is going on, which way is up, who's doing what, etc. It really ... unfolds, the more you look at it. 
• Just noticed that my man appears to be tickling her underboob, which is a funny thing to do when your life is in danger, but people cope with stress in all kinds of ways, who am I to judge?

Best things about this back cover:

• typewriter font...
• "Clint half-slid"—classic sap behavior: always half-sliding, never all-the-way sliding. Commit to something, for once in your life, Clint!
• This book should be titled Bring Me The Head of Clint Farrell!
• Devvy! Wow now I love her more. It's like the Devil and a Chevy had a gun-wielding baby!

Page 123~

"Nuts!" Clint told her. "Look, come down or I'm coming up. All you need is a banana in your fist."

Sure, Clint has a pretty limited, primarily food-based vocabulary, but what a charmer! Feel free to use the line, "Is that a banana in your fist, or are you just glad to see me?" next time the occasion seems to warrant it. [I should add that I almost abandoned Page 123 for Page 122, the first words of which are, "... sucked the boom stick down by its butt ..."]

~RP

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Paperback 1065: Move Over, Darling / Marvin H. Albert (Dell 5859)

Paperback 1065: Dell 5859 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Move Over, Darling

Author: Marvin H. Albert

Cover artist: TERPNING (no, really) [Howard Terpning—thanks to reader Jeff for the reference]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Look, Doris Day's hair stylists did her no favors for a good chunk of the '60s but she is never not adorable and frankly that outfit is straight-up hot. I mean, your tastes may not run to the prim and purple, but that's your problem.
• James Garner, also the dreamiest, but this cover isn't really designed to showcase that.
• I hate how '60s paperback covers tend to emphasize text and often drive the art right off the page, but this cover has a nice, whimsical font, and frankly the artist gets a lot out of small details (DD's smile, her contemplative hand gesture, her dangly right shoe...)
• I love this idea that in the '60s, it was every guy's dream to have not one but two wives. "What a setup!" This runs contrary to most wife-related comedy I've heard over the years. Something about taking wives... please.

Best things about this back cover:

• See, text. It's awful.
• This is basically the plot of My Favorite Wife (Grant/Dunne, 1940). Since that is one of my favorite movies of all time, and since I have a crush on both of the actors on the cover of this book, I'm willing to give this movie a shot.
• See, TERPNING, I wasn't kidding. That's the cover artist's name. Not sure how that's a real name, but ... there it is! As I understand it, TERP is short for "terrapin," a kind of turtle. I would see a turtle-horror film called "The Terpning"!

Page 123~

"I was very excited by the island vegetation. I'm afraid I spent so much time on research that I was not very good company for your wife."

Heyyyyy, this *is* the plot of My Favorite Wife!!! Nick's first wife, Ellen, is shipwrecked for years on an island with a Johnny Weissmuller-type hunk (Adam) as her only companion. In order to keep Nick from getting jealous, she tries to pass off some ordinary-looking shoe clerk as Adam. Misunderstanding, tomfoolery, and hijinks ensue. Annnnyway, Move Over, Darling appears to be a faithful remake of My Favorite Wife, so now I'm definitely going to see it. Possibly right now. 

~RP

P.S. OMG the entire movie is summarized in just four pages of photo stills from the movie (please enjoy my leering marginal illustration):

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Paperback 1011: She Wouldn't Surrender / James Kendricks (Monarch MA301)

Paperback 1011: Monarch MA301 (PBO, 1960)

Title: She Wouldn't Surrender
Author: James Kendricks
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire] (attribution from here) (and here)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $20-25

Best things about this cover:

• Wow, this really ticks all the boxes: naked redhead with a gun, painted by Robert Maguire, posing as "Americana," on one of the greatest mainstream sleaze imprints of the 20th century. Monarch Books got some of the greatest cover artists to work for them, and I love how they had all these subseries designed to give their softcore books a patina of respectabilty. Who could quibble with your passion for "Americana"!? Communists, that's who.
• "Whoa, a *real* redhead! Wait'll I tell Wilb-" [gets shot in the neck]
• My favorite part of this cover is weirdly her hat

Best things about this back cover:

• Hmmm. It sounds like she *would* surrender, sometimes.
• Sure, your girl has charms, but do they pulsate? Do They!?
• OK, "Only the dead were incapable of remembering her" is kind of a good line
• 🎶Wanton eyes! They're watching you! They see your Union boots...🎶

Page 123~

[nah, I don't like this page—it's all gruesome war stuff: horses being maimed and what not ... I much much prefer the teaser text on the opening page, headlined NAKED ENCOUNTER]

The soldier whirled. His eyes bulged at the sight of the naked girl, her magnificent breasts jouncing as she stopped abruptly to stare back at him wantonly [...] Too late he saw the weapon in her hand. Too long he had stared at the undulating breasts, the quivering eyes, the tantalizing smile...

JOUNCING! Part jiggling, part bouncing, all *deadly*!

~RP

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Paperback 998: Mig Alley / Robert Eunson (Ace D-365)

Paperback 998: Ace D-365 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Mig Alley
Author: Robert Eunson
Cover artist: Verne Tossey

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• That is the face of a man of literally insane confidence: "I will die and be reborn and rule the heavens. Yes, this is a good death."
• There are a lot of planes in this shot, all of them like three yards from each other. Is this normal / physically possible?
• The way you know this cover was designed exclusively for straight dudes is that she looks fantastic whereas he looks like what would happen if the contents of a vacuum bag suddenly came to life and took the form of a remarkably graceless vampire.

Best things about this back cover:

• MIGs crossing the YALU! This scratches all of my crossword itches!
• I find the motion lines on MIG ALLEY adorable.
• On the Sexy-Name-O-Meter, I gotta believe Homer McCullough registers pretty low.

Page 123~

"Let's get ourselves attached to a couple of these Chinese doll-babies and see what happens."
The waitress was back with our drinks so I said, "Bring two hostesses, please."
"Whach [sic!] kind you like? Tall, skinny, fatso?" She laughed.
"A short one," Mac said, "just like you."

Yes. Yes, I do believe the guy on the front cover would do / say all of this. Yes. On-brand.

[The Orientalism goes to 11 over the course of the next few pages, to the point of incoherence: "Her hips, however, bulged to the seams of the dress, giving the sultry hint of the East." Why Does That Last Phrase Even Exist?! I mean, you were doing so well, right up to "dress," and then, like those MIGs on the front cover ... !?!?]

~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 887: Replenishing Jessica / Maxwell Bodenheim (Avon 191)

Paperback 887: Avon 191 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Replenishing Jessica
Author: Maxwell Bodenheim
Cover artist: [Phillips & Troeger / Troeger-Phillips]

Estimated value: $12-15

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Let's see … how to replenish Jessica? Sure, I'd say FIVE MEN oughta do it.
• This appears to be the story of how the Flash got married, settled down, and got a steady job with an insurance company. "Is this what you wanted, baby?" he seems to ask.
• The most reliably informed reseller of vintage paperbacks on abebooks describes this book as a "SEX and HEROIN NOVEL," so … that's unexpected. And brings the total to two—two possible ways to replenish Jessica.
• The only reason I still attend crossword tournaments is so that Doug Peterson can slip me some vintage paperback contraband in a dingy little plastic bag. It's all quite (appropriately) sordid.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare looks dubious about the literary merits of the publishing enterprise to which he has affixed his mug.

Page 123~

"This new school does away with all of the old qualms and quandaries, and we can certainly accomplish more when we know that sex is, well, is only the violent servant that we've hired for purposes of recreation."

Actually, the violent servant you've hired is named Tony, and it'll be $300/hr.

~RP

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