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 556: Big Man / Richard Marsten (Pocket Books 1235)

Paperback 556: Pocket Books 1235 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Big Man
Author: Richard Marsten
Cover artist: Richard Abbett

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• This is somehow both unremarkable and quintessential. I wish the background lady were a little more crisply rendered, a little bit less like some medieval woodcut, but I love the distressed title font, the nutso Lee Marvinesque shooter, and the tiny detail of the shell casing floating between his eyes and the gun. Oh, and the red. The big, bold, blood red. All great.
• Richard Marsten = Evan Hunter = Ed McBain, for those of you playing the alias name game at home.
• 1959 is the dead center of my collection, so I have a particular affection for books from that year, especially beat-up but still complete and readable crime fiction paperback originals with sensational covers. The somewhat lousy girl art is the only thing keeping this from being Perfect.
• It's honestly creepy how much this guy appears to be imitating Lee Marvin in "Point Blank" ... which won't come out for almost another decade.

Best things about this back cover:

• Carfon looks like something that should have a "TM" after it and be on the handset of chunky 1980s car phone.
• May Taglio! (not to be confused with Maytag Leo, who fixes your washer/dryer)
• I reviewed Daybreak once, a long time ago.

Page 123~

"You ain't gonna kill me," he said. "If you don't know it, I do. You just ain't gonna kill me in cold—" and I pulled the trigger.

This page dragged me right in and I read to the end of the chapter. It's amazingly brutal. The next killing's even colder. And none of these people is May Taglio! Based on these pages, I don't see him having Any problem killing his wife. I might actually read this one cover-to-cover.

~RP

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Paperback 506: The Man Inside (Milo March Mystery 4) / M.E. Chaber (Paperback Library 63-213)

Paperback 506: Paperback Library 63-213 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: The Man Inside (Milo March Mystery 4)
Author: M. E. Chaber
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $5

Best things about this cover:

• Yes, Lee Marvin likes your see-through sarong very much.
• Seriously, this guy is my hero. I want his rough-hewn throne, his shirt, his, let's say, bourbon, and his, let's say, companion.
• The art deco-ish font is ... odd. Not throne-odd, but odd.
• Where Is Her Other Shoe!?

Best things about this back cover:

• Hell Yeah Wenching! 
• I want a sweater made of Chaber yarn.
• "You need not be told ..." HA ha. That wins "Most Unnecessary Blurb."

Page 123~

"Homicide is sending a man. Maybe they've already sent him. I threw around as much weight as I could and I think he'll look you up before he does anything, but don't expect any more than that. I don't think he'll give you any cooperation."

"I never expect any from a cop," I said.

Ooh, a quipster who plays by his own rules. He's the Die Hard of his generation.

~RP

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