Paperback 578: False Witness / Helen Nielsen (Ballantine U2150)

Paperback 578: Ballantine Books U2150 (2nd ptg, 1966)

Title: False Witness
Author: Helen Nielsen
Cover artist: [illegible]

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• When Drapery Attacks!
• I give up; what the hell am I looking at? Looks like a Cirque de Soleil act gone very, very wrong.
• That dude's like, "Uh ... Can you help me? I think I'm supposed to be on a different cover?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Why would you emphasize words that mean nothing to a potential reader? "'RANDOM NAME!'!? Ooh, this looks good..."
• This description is very, very confusing. I really lost track of things at "foreigners."
• Looks like strange photographs of roses were a big thing in late '60s cover design.

Page 123~

I didn't comment. The silence was ominous enough without confusing it with words I couldn't prove. 

Sometimes you just gotta shut up and enjoy the ominousness.

~RP

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Paperback 319: Seven Days Before Dying / Helen Nielsen (Dell 971)

Paperback 319: Dell 971 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Seven Days Before Dying
Author: Helen Nielsen
Cover artist: R. Del Rossi

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The amazing detail on the shoes and socks. I would have thought this one of the more boring crime fiction covers, but I looked at the shoes and socks for a while and they're lovingly rendered, and kind of mesmerizing.
• That lady is either chasing a very clumsy thief or drunkenly stumbling through a public park, chucking her jewelry at schoolchildren for amusement.

Best things about this back cover:

• There's some blue splatters on it ... for some reason.
• You know a novel means business when it breaks out the Courier font.

Page 123~

Stu leaned forward and extended his right hand in a greeting that was never acknowledged, whereupon the blonde toppled forward into her drink again. By this time, she was beyond caring anyway, so Stu let her stay there.

Did I mention that Helen Nielsen's a pretty good writer. 'Cause she is.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 57: The Crime is Murder / Helen Nielsen (Curtis 6105)

Paperback 57: Curtis Books 6105 (1st ptg?, n.d. - circa 1970)

Title: The Crime is Murder
Author: Helen Nielsen
Cover artist: photo cover


Best things about this cover:

• O my god, they killed Beethoven! You bastards!
• A million bonus points to whoever can identify the piece of music featured on this cover.
• Again, another ugly, post-1960 book. The only reason I own this is my minor, short-lived obsession with Helen Nielsen. She was a reasonably big name in (semi-) hard-boiled crime fiction in the 40s and 50s, but then, poof, gone. I'm really intrigued by women who wrote "tough guy" crime fiction before, say, Sue Grafton. This book appears to have little if anything "hard-boiled" about it, but female hardboiled writers from mid-century are hard to come by, so I snatch up their books whenever I (cheaply) can. Nielsen's writing was featured in the (wonderful, essential) mid-90s anthology Hard-Boiled (eds. Pronzini and Adrian).

Best thing about this back cover:

• I'm not familiar with the use of "lay" in that last sentence. Or else ... I am familiar with it, and this book is a different genre than I'd imagined.

RP