Paperback 1085: Frenchman's Creek / Daphne du Maurier (Pocket Books 50078)

 Paperback 1085: Pocket Books 50078 (6th ptg, 1964)

Title: Frenchman's Creek

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Cover artist: [Mort Engle?] [Uncredited]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

[Riverow Books, Owego, NY, May 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• When they're underpaying you for your artwork and you're like, "Fuck it, I'm making this one 65% white bedsheet. You want naked ladies and piratical finery, Pay Me!"
• Even the cover copy writer seems to be quiet-quitting: "Let's see. How 'bout: 'This is a novel about this kind of person and that kind of person'? ... yeah, that's good, lunchtime."
• What the hell is on her head. He's got the classic pirate kerchief, but she ... I don't know what she has. Some kind of feathered headdress. It's like she's on a Vegas showgirl on a quick break. "Ma chérie, can't you take off this silly h—" "Can it, Pierre, I've only got 15 minutes, let's do this!"
• I want this cover to be by Mort Engle, only because I can see a signature on the far left side, on the edge of the bed, that kinda looks like "Engle." It's not exactly his style, but it is his general era. Most of his stuff doesn't have a visible signature, though, so ... maybe not. [UPDATE: it’s probably the work of artist James Neil Boyle. (signatures match)]

Best things about this back cover: 

• LOL "fat and stupid husband," yes, do not mince words, drag him!
• Mmm, lonely and mysterious Cornwall estate. Peak Gothic locale.
• Whoa, she actually becomes a pirate! Livin' outside the "bounds of convention and propriety!" Atta girl!

Page 123~

The foolish wager of the wig came to her mind, and she realized then that the Frenchman must have known that Godolphin would be staying with Philip Rashleigh in Fowey that night, and that side by side with the capture of the ship he had planned the seizing of Godolphin's wig.

OK, first of all, that "Godolphin" / "Philip Rashleigh" / "Fowey" trifecta had me howling with fanciful historical-romance name overload, and second of all, how is this novel not called The Seizing of Godolphin's Wig. Something should be called The Seizing of Godolphin's Wig. It's a Restoration-era sex farce at the very least.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and BlueSky]

Paperback 382: The Conspirators / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition C127)

Paperback 382: Dell First Edition C127 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Conspirators
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Mort Engle

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "O Steve, you're the captain of my heart! I hope we can stay like this forever and not be killed in some freakish accident like a spontaneous tidal wave..."
• I kind of love how Engle can evoke an entire yacht from just two panes of glass and one of those phallic knobby things on the steering wheel.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh.
• Is the text supposed to mirror the tidal wave on the cover? Because if so, fail.
• Gray-on-blue = not advised as a cover copy option unless you hate your readers, good taste, and common decency.

Page 123~

Carter kept his eye on the blade, started circling crab-fashion.

Fully half the sentences on this page are written in this conjunction- and pronoun-hating fashion. "He glared at Carter, pulled a long-bladed fishing knife from the scabbard at his belt." "Joe started to protest, subsided at a snarled order from Carter." Etc. Maybe Kane thinks it creates momentum. I think it creates annoyance. In me. Being a hard-boiled writer means not just paring down your prose, but knowing where the paring is supposed to happen.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]