Paperback 1114: Bantam 12120 (7th ptg, 1978)
Title: The Wycherly Woman
Author: Ross Macdonald
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks
Condition: 9
Value: $10-15
- "Finally, I have invented a gun that doubles as an electric razor. What should I do? Hmm..."
- Now yearning for a blue dress shirt with a pink roadster and red-moon night scene on it.
- Who puts a purple rectangle there? It's such a weird bold amazing choice.
- They could've gone a more conventional "sexy dame" route, but instead they leaned into half-drunk, half-dressed, bored and barefoot. A completely riveting nonchalance. Love it.
- This is the third late-'70s Mitchell Hooks Lew Archer book in my collection (the fourth is coming up next). The whole run may be the greatest-looking series reprint I've ever seen. I want them all. I would hang any of them on my wall. Immaculate detective fiction vibes. I don't usually collect past 1970 very much because the pictorial cover art I love devolves like crazy starting around the mid-60s, but this late-70s revival goes full throwback mode, and since so much of classic detective fiction is suffused with nostalgia and world-weariness anyway ... it's perfect. I wish (to god) books looked like this today. Like, get all your promotional textual clutter out of my face and give me Art! (and this one is only middling compared to the rest of the set)
Best things about this back cover:
- OK, there's minimal text (see front), and then there's this.
- At first glance, I thought it was a painting of Lew Archer, but no, that's a photograph of Ross Macdonald himself. Doing a damn fine P.I. impression, if you ask me.
- He looks like the guy on the cover's dad. Or his mentor. I'd hire this guy, is what I'm saying. Not sure I'd trust the front-cover. I'm not even sure he's sure. Look at him. He's like "what am I doing with my life? Am I up to this? Why isn't that woman wearing pants? Could my shave be closer?" I need someone a little more confident.
Page 123~
"Catherine Wycherly is running loose around the countryside with murder on her mind."
Hey, hey, whoa! spoiler alert!
~RP
