Paperback 1029: Widow's Web / Ursula Curtiss (Ace G-561)

Paperback 1029: Ace G-561 (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: Widow's Web
Author: Ursula Curtiss
Cover artist: M. Engel (signature) (who is this?)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-12

Best things about this cover:

• Well this is the weirdest damn spider I ever did see
• Head of a woman, body of a haunted house, one leg a pill bottle, the other leg a tiny couple. I pity the fly!
• This cover fits right into the Ace woman-authored suspense novel mold, reminiscent of virtually every Ace novel by, say, Charlotte Armstrong or Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (who, coincidentally, published a novel with Ace called "Widow's Mite")
• What's up with that couple? She's leaning in like "Oh, Larry, kiss me," and he's like "Wait, wait ... where did I leave my pill bottle? It was just here, I swear."

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, text, boo.
• "Catch-throat" is not a compound adjective I'm familiar with. I'm guessing it's a one-off invented by this reviewer to try to sound super reviewy. 
• Why is "hand" in that second blurb? That line works just fine hand(s)-free.

Page 123~

Torrant said that he would have coffee after all.

Despite his having one of fictiondom's more ridiculous names, I relate to Torrant.

~RP

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Paperback 410: In a Dark Garden / Frank G. Slaughter (Perma Books P107)

Paperback 410: Perma Books P107 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: In a Dark Garden
Author: Frank G. Slaughter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• The problem with doing this blog regularly over a period of many years is that it's gotten to the point where every title looks like a porn title. My first thought on this one: "So... he's about to discover that she's not a real blonde."
• Is that his "trying to sell myself" pose? "Hey, lady, you like this? You like what you see? How about ... this pose? Huh? Nice, right? Thirty bucks."
• Somehow the burnt-out hellscape in the background doesn't quite mesh with the dopey Easter-time flirtery of the foreground. "I got your painted eggs right here, sweetie . . . twenty-five bucks."
• She is comically over-dressed. How many ways do you need to block out the sun, Vampirella?

Best things about this back cover:

• This book should've been titled "This Jane Anderson"
• "Wanton" = "Civil-War Slutty"
• So ... it's a romcom about people in a fake marriage. I'm assuming wackiness ensues. I think this is essentially the plot of at least one Adam Sandler movie and at least one Sandra Bullock movie and probably thousands more filmic atrocities. And now I know whom to blame for this tired conceit: Frank G. Slaughter.

Page 123~

The runner had stayed snug in this anchorage since yesterday's dawn, while the crew had swarmed along the water line to make doubly sure that their long job of caulking had left the hull bone-dry.

OK, if that's not porn, I don't know what is. Come on!

~RP

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Paperback 406: Dark Power / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Black Cat No. 14)

Paperback 406: Black Cat No. 14 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Dark Power
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: "F.W." (any idea? anyone?)

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• "I am the eye in the sky / Looking at you-u-u / I can read your mind..."
• LOVE how the tree is reaching out to pick up the lady.
• This reminds me of the opening of Henry James's "Turn of the Screw": "Oh boy, a new job, I can't wait! I hope the kids are interesting ... uh ... wait. This can't be right. Hello?"
• It also reminds me a Very late-career Bette Davis movie called ... hang on ... aha, "Burnt Offerings!" Look, the movie poster even features the creepy old house with the single attic window lit up! Bette Davis! It's good/bad, for sure.

• To be honest, I think the front cover of Dark Power is kind of beautiful. And that logo—so great they dedicated the whole back page to it.

["This is not the book you seek. Back away, slowly ..."]

Page 123~ (book only 120 pages long, so ... p. 23!)

Pale, unusually serious, she went down the stairs. And there in the lounge she saw a stranger, a tall, fair-haired young man, sitting stretched out in an armchair, and smoking a cigarette. When he caught sight of her, he rose.

Wow, that last sentence ... there's a lot in just those two final words. Sets the stage for one of his next lines: "I thought you were going to be repulsive [...] horn-rimmed spectacles — you know — one of these nice girls."

~RP

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