Paperback 830: Trinity in Violence / Henry Kane (Avon 618)

Paperback 830: Avon 618 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Trinity in Violence
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-$15


Best things about this cover:

• A great cover mucked up by someone's bright idea of a teaser. "Let's put the first words of the book on the cover! It'll be revolutionary!" "Where are we gonna put them?" "Why … here, right across the bottom half of the dame. Nobody likes dames on covers anyway. It's words, Words they cry for!"
• I feel like she's so pinned in by darkness that we really Need the color from the bottom half of her dress. It honestly takes me several takes, every time I look at this thing, to realize it's a fur over her right shoulder and not some weird dark thing in the foreground blocking my view.
• Also, is the apartment building on fire? If not, why is there thick black smoke around the title?
• She looks an awful lot like my second college girlfriend. My girlfriend tended to wear more clothes and carry fewer guns than this lady, but still … if this lady we're looking at is named "Rosie" (as that damned block of text suggests), then that's another weird connection, as "Rose" was an element of my girlfriend's name.
• There's something quintessential about this cover. Not great on its own, but great at capturing a certain cover type: generic, be-hatted, trenchcoated sap stands in as proxy for reader/viewer. Doesn't matter what he looks like. It matters what She looks like. And it matters that she's trouble.

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the primitive video game-like swarm of armed "A" logos. I just need a Peter Chambers icon and a joystick.
• Henry Kane looks like he wants desperately to escape the photo shoot.
• "The Scandinavian?"

Page 123~

He nudged a pinky-point at his thin mustache.

From his picture, it looks like Henry Kane knows from thin mustaches. Authenticity, thy name is Kane.

~RP

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Paperback 183: Death is the Last Lover / Henry Kane (Avon T-291)

Paperback 183: Avon T-291 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Death is the Last Lover
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• The color scheme. It's gutsy - pink, baby blue, and then ... some kind of maroon
• The title - sensationalist writing at its best / worst. Does she literally sleep with Death, or does her John kill her, or what?
• Thank god Death was her last lover - that makes a much better title than "Herb the Copier Salesman from Wichita is the Last Lover"
• Her face is unfortunate. The painting makes her look vapid, which is inherently unsexy. I do dig that oversized hat box she's sitting on, though. Her legs and cleavage aren't awful either.

Best things about this back cover:

• Personally, I like "bosoms and brandies" with pretty much anything.
• That negligee has too many adjectives. It stopped being sexy right around adjective #3
• Oh look, it's that insipid face again. Nope, it's no sexier in blue tone.

Page 123~

I sat near her, enjoying the warmth of her thigh. "Honey," I said, "you're a nice, sweet, attractive gal, and I'm crazy about you."

"Yeah, I remember," she said.

Wow, she talks a lot cooler than she looks.

Paperback 48: Pyramid G432

Paperback 48: Pyramid G432 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Private Eyeful
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours For: SOLD! (4-18-08)


Best things about this cover:

Everything - this cover is so great that I actually have nothing mocking or jokey to say. It's gorgeous, and has so many of the elements I look for in a cover:

• Girl with Gun (GWG)
  
• Great Girl Art (GGA)
  
• Great design
• Great title
• Gorgeous condition

Plus: Orange!? That's hot. You Never see a woman in an orange dress on these covers, let alone one wearing matching pumps! The heavy black outline makes her look a little bit like Miss Halloween, 1959, but whatever. It hardly matters. I love her. And she's a female detective - at a time when that was Not At All common, especially in the hardboiled genre. Also love the colorful angular design near the spine - and her proud look / defiant posture really seals the deal. A Hall of Fame cover for sure. Bob Maguire was one hell of a cover artist.


Best things about this back cover:

"It was cockeyed..." - That's what she said.

Ooh, this back cover's ugly - what a horrible contrast with the front cover

Question of the day: Is the man pictured above

a. wearing Merlin's robe
b. tunneling out of prison
c. suffering from a debilitating attack of scabies that also somehow affects clothing, or
d. Dorian Gray?

Answer: I have no idea.

RP