Paperback 1120: Long Shot / David Mark (Dell D300)

Paperback 1120: Dell D300 (1st ptg., 1959)

Title: Long Shot

Author: David Mark

Cover artist: Bob McGinnis [apparently misattributed] Mitchell Hooks

Condition: 6.5 or 7/10

Value: $8-10

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• God bless my wife for discovering that the bookstore we were rummaging around last week in Geneva, NY had cabinets running the length of the floor (closed!) that contained $1 books. We both of us dropped to our knees and started combing over the inventory. We emerged with five good-to-great books, absolute steals at $1. This is one of them, maybe the best of them, where the cover is concerned. You can't go wrong with McGinnis [I'm told the attribution to McGinnis is a mistake, and that the artist is actually Mitchell Hooks ... whom you also can't go wrong with]. This is top-shelf GGA (Great Girl Art). Her smoky sideways glance and akimbo arm (not to mention her Fantastic green dress and orange coat) give this cover tremendous curb appeal.
• The contrast between her (foreground) and the shadowy dude at the betting window (background) creates great dynamic tension in the cover. Doubt it would work half so well if *he* were in the foreground.
• Who needs a silly thing like decency when you've got a rotten little tramp and the sick excitement of a gambling addiction!
• Long Shot is so much better than The Long Chance (the original title). Whoever was in charge of marketing at Dell really knew what they were doing here.
• Seriously, her ensemble is on fire.

Best things about this back cover: 

• I'm sorry, is his name really "Loeser?" Kind of on-the-nose for a noir-style sap, don't you think? 
• HUSBAND ... LOVER ... BELOVED? I think I get what's going on with Ruth and Katy, but Carol ... I have questions about Carol.
• I have this nagging feeling that things don't end well for Mr. Loeser. That description of what it feels like for him to be at the track is striking, and strikingly like the feelings associated with other addictions, notably alcoholism.

Page 123~

    "Fight back!" roared the straight-backed man with the gray mustache (why did everyone have to roar?), "you have to learn to fight back."

    "Yes, sir."

    "You want to be a man, don't you?"

    "I guess so."

    "You want to be a good soldier, don't you?"

    "I don't think so."

    "Well, speak up, lad, what do you want to be?"

    Rick tried again. "Alive," he said.

~RP

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Paperback 1077: Dark Rapture / Kim Darien (Ace S-117)

Paperback 1077: Ace S-117 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Dark Rapture

Author: Kim Darien

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7    

Value: $10-12

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• "My left pinkie? Yeah, I broke that in a horrible bowling accident when I was a kid. Don't worry about it. Here, look at my right hand instead? Nice, right?"
• "Her? Nah, don't mind her, she's just the, uh, cleaning lady. Yeah, she likes to sleep on her smoke break. Does both at once. Sleep and smokes. Saves time."
• The blonde is the very definition of GGA (Great Girl Art), but it's like the painter was really more interested in directing your attention elsewhere—to the corny, chipper dude, yes, but most assuredly to the enigmatically sleep-smoking lady. Frankly, she is the only one whose story I care to know.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book hit me ... and it felt like a kiss.
• Love the visual [rrrrriiiiiipppp] 
• "Simmy knew she'd had a tough break. First of all, she was named Simmy. Strike one ..."
• "Downright swell" and "heel"—the two masculinities

Page 123~

Back under the wheel, Jerry remarked that was the kind of service he liked; service with a smile, the kind you didn't come across too often in the city. "People out here show the customer some courtesy. Swell bunch out here in the sticks, none better." He backed the Buick out of the parking lot.

"Yeah, they got real manners out here in Shitville. Classy bunch of people. Really know how to treat a guy right. Might do all my grocery shopping out here from now on, babe, whaddya say?" Can't tell if this guy is "Downright swell" or more the "Heel" type. Really feels ... latter.

~RP

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Paperback 1074: The Amboy Dukes / Irving Shulman (Avon 169)

Paperback 1074: Avon 169 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Amboy Dukes

Author: Irving Shulman

Cover artist: Ann Cantor

Condition: 7/10

Value: $25-30

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• A Wayward Youth Grows in Brooklyn
• Ooh, I did not know there was a movie tie-in variant cover for this (very famous) JD novel. Oddly thrilling. I mean, not as thrilling as my man's gaudy and shockingly wide tie, but thrilling nonetheless.
• Her eyebrows and his spit curl are Just So. Mwah. Perfect. Great hats, great attitude, just great all around.
• Drew Pearson! Oh sure, I know him, he's a ... [squints] ... noted commentator. Wow. That's a job title right there [runs off to update business cards]

Best things about this back cover:

• "Oh Frankie" "Oh Betty" [swelling music, heaving bosoms, sloppy kissing noises]
• "Frankie and Betty / Were sick of spaghetti / By the summer of seventy-five // They were tired and cold / They were 50 years old / They were barely alive" (thank you for coming to my Billy Joel tribute concert)
• I do like how they give the whole damn cover, edge to edge, over to this dramatically lit picture. I guess this is to prove that the movie is real and not just some weird marketing ploy.

Page 123~

"I love you, Frankie," Betty was hoarse with passion. 

"Will you ever leave me?" whinnied Frankie. "Neigh," hoarsed Betty.

~RP

P.S. I am so happy to be writing this blog regularly again. I do not care at all if the blog ever has a lot of readers, but I would like it to find its audience. Its weirdo niche. So if you ever wanted to hype it, in any way, to your nerdy friends, that would be rad. Thanks. Oh, and comments welcome. I love hearing what you all think of the books. XO

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Paperback 1067: The Skull Beneath the Skin / P.D. James (Warner 30606)

Paperback 1067: Warner Books 30-606 (1st ptg, 1983)

Title: The Skull Beneath the Skin

Author: P.D. James

Cover artist: Victor Gadino

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• Love how unapologetically literal the cover is. "Look at her skin ... such lovely skin ... but ... uh, oh, what's beneath that skin? Could it be ... a skull!! Bwah ha ha ha open the book, If You Dare!"
• And the inside cover? So. Much. Happening!

• This was published much later than most of the books in my collection (which stays mostly in a tight 1939-69 range), but I've begun expanding my range of interest into the '70s and '80s as books that once seemed "too modern" to me now turn out to be fascinating examples of vanishing if not completely bygone book design. This is pure supermarket checkout line stuff, but the stepback keyhole cover—something I would've thought cheesy thirty years ago—now strikes me as bold, theatrical, ornate ... I mean, imagine popular thrillers today looking like *this* instead of, well, like this:

If you are publishing a crime novel that DOESN'T have a dark house with yellow windows and yellow text, you are off to the gulag. I don't make the rules. pic.twitter.com/PLwaQjdr4I

— Caustic Cover Critic, not necessarily a bad person (@Unwise_Trousers) March 7, 2023

• I'm also fascinated by the fact that this stepback keyhole treatment isn't for a book by, say, V.C. Andrews (the author most associated with this exact kind of cover)—rather, it's for P.D. James, an extremely literary (and extremely British) mystery writer that I wouldn't have thought ripe for this kind of aggressively popular (populist) marketing. Lawrence Sanders, Stephen King, sure, but P.D. James!? I feel like there's a clash of cover aesthetic and actual content ... and I love it!
• She really is a great writer. I read the first few pages just now; only meant to pop in and have a glance, but she just grabs you and takes you.

Best things about this back cover:

• Just blurbs, along the lines of "No, seriously, if you're the kind of person who reads blurbs and want assurances of quality from reputable periodicals, here, look, here's a bunch of them. It's not 'trash,' we swear!"
• That little hint of illustration there at the bottom right? That's from the delicious (and deliciously wraparound) spinal art! Bring back spinal art! I want my spines to stare sexily at me! Is that too much to ask!?

Page 123~

Cordelia, happily engrossed in old copies of The Illustrated London News and The Strand magazine, in which she could read the Sherlock Holmes stories as they originally appeared, wished that she could have been left in peace. 

Yes, I like this Cordelia. We would get along marvelously, I think. I too like to read old stories as they originally appeared, and don't get me started on being left in peace. Heaven. Call me, Cordelia. We can sit and read and say nothing to each other.

~RP

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Paperback 1060: The Troubled Midnight / Rodney Garland (Lion Library LL 128)

Paperback 1060: Lion Library LL 128 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: The Troubled Midnight

Author: Rodney Garland

Cover artist: Charles Copeland

Condition: 7/10

Value: ~$15

Best things about this cover:

• Satan Had Yellow Eyebrows!
• Love this dude's "sneering supercilious billionaire face." Too bad half of it got blown off somehow.
• "Look at the little worms, fighting over nothing, doomed to fail ... pathetic. I regret that I have but one eye to glower at them with."
• If there aren't airplanes involved, you cannot call it a "novel of flight." That's the rule.
• For a grade A thriller, make sure you steep your novel in reality for at least three but no more than five minutes. Any longer and it loses that delicious cheesy taste.

Best things about this back cover:

• The searing tale of a woman's forbidden love for her bedpost! "When her midnight became troubled, she turned to the one solid, upright thing in her life ..."
• Wow, they really don't want you to know anything about the plot, do they?
• Marseilles? Huh. Did not see that coming. With that build-up, I was thinking maybe "Rome" or "Moscow" or something, but no, Marseilles, sure, let's go with that.

Page 123~

The shop was full of people, some trying out fountain pens or buying postcards, others, like a girl I noticed with hairy legs like a deer, and obviously from the Midi, browsing.

Dude needs to go back to Comma School. Also, "like a deer?" Like a deer's legs ... are hairy? Like a deer browses? Like a browsing hairy deer from the Midi browses? I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to be picturing here. Some kind of sexy bibliophilic satyress?  Maybe just buy your mystery novel and go back to your garret, Pierre.

~RP

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Paperback 1038: The Fugitive Eye / Charlotte Jay (Avon 670)

Paperback 1038: Avon 670 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Fugitive Eye
Author: Charlotte Jay
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $5-7

Best things about this cover:

• "Uh, hey ... I was just ... she was ... I ... just clearing some brush, you know ... at night, in my suit ... it's totally normal, everything's normal"
• Is that her dress, or did she die inside a giant salmon?
• Talk about a fugitive eye. I'm over here, buddy!
• Fear Hand (male edition)

Best things about this back cover:

• "How do we convey the sheer terror!?" "Maybe write it on a slant?" "OMG THAT IS TERRIFYING!"
• "Don't start this..." LOL, OK!
• I'm mad at "Invariably"; yeah, you heard me, Cincinnati Times-Star
• "MISS"—we got ourselves an unmarried Aussie authoress, boys!
• "Beat Not the Bones" never doesn't make me laugh

Page 123~

But as he looked around his gaze met no human face.

There was this one raccoon face, but raccoons probably couldn't testify in court, thought Steve

~RP

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Paperback 1021: Horns for the Devil / Louis Malley (Pocket Books 894)

Paperback 1021: Pocket Books 894 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Horns for the Devil
Author: Louis Malley
Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• "I Want You ... For U.S. Mafia"
• Not many covers break the fourth wall quite this breakingly. "Who are you? You got my sandwiches?! Well then whaddya want? Shut the fuckin' door! You lookin' at my girl!? Jerry, Lou, show this guy what for!"
• This is a fantastic cavalcade of mugs. Hall-of-Fame B-movie extras. Just hanging around, waiting for someone to call them up for another stint in Generic Mid-Century American Crime Story. "Our regular Girl At Bar No. 3 turned her ankle. You're in, kid!"
• It's not exactly like the work of director Louis Malle, but it is ... Malle-y.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Look here! Now I'm big and two-toned and my background is Rage Red! Where's my *&%^ing coffee?!"
• Severio Lebbrosa! That means "seriously like a leopard."
• No, no, no, it's "first you get the money, then you get the power, *THEN* you get the women." Come on, man. Did you not watch "Scarface?"

Page 123~

When they got out of the car Ralph squeezed her hand, but she wanted more than that. It had come so suddenly.

This was the very least boring sentence, which is wedged in between a conversation with an old lady and a scintillating drive to Westchester. I probably shoulda just let you think it was prelude to a steamy sex scene. Sorry.

~RP

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Paperback 988: The Trail of Fu Manchu / Sax Rohmer (Pyramid R-1003)

Paperback 988: Pyramid R-1003 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: The Trail of Fu Manchu
Author: Sax Rohmer
Cover artist: Robert Maguire (credited as "Bob Maguire")

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Psst, guys, he's up there ... up ... to your right ... your ... my left ... up ...
• "I say, old man, is he in there?" "I'm afraid not." "Perhaps if you put down your brolly..." "No, I think not." "Well, we've done all we can. Tea?"
• This cover has all the drama and suspense of two dapper gents opening a green box.
• I like the inverted male gaze here—instead of two guys ogling naked lady statues, we have naked lady statues ogling two guys.
• It's not one of Maguire's more memorable covers, but Maguire is Maguire is Maguire; I'll take it.
• My wife got me this book at The Last Bookstore in L.A., which sounds Uh-mazing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Blah blah pulp cliche / orientalist nonsense
• But Nay!
• This was quite the franchise. I have never read any of these. Wonder if it's worth it...

Page 123~

"We are in part of the workings of an abandoned Thames tunnel. We are together because . . . we are going to die together."

See, I know I'm supposed to be rapt by the dramatic final utterance here, but all I can think of is "Why the hell is 'part of the workings of' in that first sentence!? Do you enjoy murdering sentences? Do You!?"

~RP

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Paperback 900: Outlaw Guns / E.E. Halleran (Avon 522)

Paperback 900!!!!!!!!!!: Avon 522 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1953)

Title: Outlaw Guns
Author: E.E. Halleran
Cover artist: Bill Randall

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• I call this one "Rampant Horses On Yellow Background For Some Reason"
• Beardy's all "Oh, 'Outlaw Guns' ... I get it now! Yuck yuck yuck .... boobs."
• She has insane murdery dead-eyed vacant 1000-yard stare.
• Bitch eyebrows? Bitch eyebrows.
• This cover is terribly ill-conceived. *She* seems ready to go, right out of the box, but everything else (except the wicked awesome wood font and Beardy's mug!) is a total mess.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks less like a bandit and more like a guy protecting himself from a smell.
• Still, that sketch is pretty cool. Love the cute yellow inset.
• Well, of course, if you're gonna have "Outlaw Guns," you gotta have Outlaw Bullets. Otherwise you're just running around waving your guns going "pew! pew!"
• "Pronto!"

Page 123~

"Don't jam the chute," Frazer warned him.

Good advice.

~RP

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Paperback 879: Number One / John Dos Passos (Lion Library LL1)

Paperback 879: Lion Library LL1 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Number One
Author: John Dos Passos
Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• When you start shooting up bourbon, your friends naturally get a bit concerned.
• He's right to be freaked out. If you look at her left hand too long, you too will begin to get the creeping sense that she's an ALIEN, MAN.
• Pee. This book is about pee. You don't want to read the sequel.
• Clever bit of publishing here on Lion Library's part. This is the first (i.e. Number One) book to come out under the Lion Library imprint.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Why is there a ladybug in here!? Who authorized this?! I'm gonna swat it, so help me …!"
• "There's no floor here! No floor! It just … stops." "Er, it's a stage, sir, that's what stages do." "I don't care, someone should've told me, Brian! You're fired!"
• John Dos Passos came to earth to study curious earthling types.

Page 123~

As he looked out through the glass doors of the phone booth at the bustle of dressy people, men in sportsclothes with cigars, frilly stoutish women with skittish hats, pretty girls in long evening dresses, young men out to have themselves a time, he felt an invisible sour smoke swirling between them and him.

I mistyped several words while transcribing this. Every time I looked to see what I'd screwed up, I was like "Yeah, that's better." This passage crystallizes noir—"good times" seen at a sad, knowing, alienated remove. Deromanticized. Surface appearances all revealed as desperate posturing. This is Don Draper just before he goes "fuck it" and just takes off across the country in his Caddy.

~RP

PS check out that "SCHULZ" signature, etched right into the side of the damned table. I always did love how he made his signature part of the three-dimensional world of the painting.

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Paperback 871: Dictators Die Hard / Robert A. Levey // Evil is the Night / John Creighton (Ace D-393)

Paperback 871: Ace Double D-393 (1st ptg / PBO)

Titles: Dictators Die Hard / Evil is the Night
Authors: Robert A. Levey / John Creighton
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Estimated value: $25-30

Best things about this cover:

• Dictators Die Hard—Stenographers Spank Harder!
• Dictators Die Hard—You're Looking At My Chest, Aren't You?
• I love the composition of this cover. Logically, this must depict two different scenes, but I like the idea of her staring down the gunman. "Oh, am I distracting you?" "I hope you're man enough to make the shot." "You *better* not be pointing that thing at me." "Hurry up so we can go riding, you tiresome lout!"
• She borrowed her ascot from a foppish squirrel.

Best things about this other cover:

• Jenga!
• I hate to think where that thing's been.
• "I'm thinking of calling my book 'Tender is the Night'" "That title's taken." "Hmmm…."

Page 123~

I stared at McMahon, and Hibbs scowled at me. Nobody said anything. It was an uncomfortable moment. 

This took 9th place in Yakima County's "Write Like Raymond Carver Day" competition.

~RP

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Paperback 864: A Man Called Spade / Dashiell Hammett (Dell 411)

Paperback 864: Dell 411 (2nd ptg, 1st thus, 1950)

Title: A Man Called Spade
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $30

Best things about this cover:

• Spade's tie is super-excited for battle.
• If you looked in a 1950 encyclopedia under "Private Dick": this picture. Chiseled. Determined. Behatted. Textbook.
• Fear Hand Photobomb!
• The scale / perspective is All wrong on this, but given that awesome green shirt, I'm gonna allow it.
• "She screamed as Spade dashed up the stairs"—get it? "Dashed"? Yeah, you get it.
• I have a friend whose kid is named Dashiell. Art Spiegelman's son is named Dashiell. This concludes the Dashiell-shout-out portion of my the program.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoa. You know, sometimes we forget that 1940s apartments were all long couches and putting greens.
• Max Bliss is the best unintentional porn name I've come across in a Long time.
• I love a pitcher of Bloody Marys as much as anyone, but maybe ease up on the celery there.
• Wow, Max Bliss's daughter is taking that "50 Shades of Grey" thing a bit literally.

'
Page 123~ (from "Too Many Have Lived")

She was short, square, as if carved economically from a cube. 

Talk about economical. That is some haiku-esque objectification right there. Classic.

~RP

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Paperback 862: The Valiant Strain / Kenneth E. Shiflet (Dell First Edition B126)

Paperback 862: Dell First Edition B126 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Valiant Strain
Author: Kenneth E. Shiflet
Cover artist: [Robert McGinnis]

Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Lieutenant Grumpystache misses his Xbox.
• That neckerchief is beautiful. I also love the orange, the hint of mountains, the way the line of soldiers on horseback extends and fades to nothing. Fine little touches like these make this potentially generic cover visually interesting.
• Turns out McGinnis can paint things other than bored-looking half-naked ladies with ample hips. I had to double-check my own labeling just now, because I thought "no way this is McGinnis."

Best things about this back cover:

• "A story as big and rugged as these two giant dueling cocks … oh, sorry sabers. Those are sabers. All appearances to the contrary … sabers."
• I can't wait to read about the "strain" that brought the giant dueling cocks men to their "final glory." I am in. Money down, out the door. You had me at "shavetail."

Page 123~

Roan thought of how Graham had denied them.

Don't deny them, Graham. Open your heart. Let your love flow. And nevermind that I'm taking things out of context, just go with it.

~RP

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Paperback 856: Dividend on Death / Brett Halliday (Dell 617)

Paperback 856: Dell 617 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dividend on Death
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10-12


Best things about this cover:

• Mike Shayne fights back against Obama's Death Panels.
• "*That's* no thermometer!" cried Mike Shayne.
• It looks like he's trying to do some gun hackysack and she's like "WTF!?"
• His tie is awesome. Did he fall from the sky?

Best things about this back cover:

• How much for the alliteration classes?
• "a flock of kisses from a hot-mouthed blond"—"Her kisses were like feverish sheep…"
• Dr. Pedique has the cure! Or so I imagine.

Page 123~

She gazed at him disdainfully. "What gave you the idea you were such hot stuff? If you haven't anything else on your mind, I'll ask you to go. I won't weep any salty tears if I never see you again."

"Only freshwater tears for you, sailor. Now scram!"

~RP

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Paperback 823: Last of the Breed / Les Savage, Jr. (Dell First Edition 37)

Paperback 823: Dell First Edition 37 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Last of the Breed
Author: Les Savage, Jr.
Cover artist: Stanley Borack

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I told you I didn't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no calves! I told you!"
• Mysterious stranger just wants to borrow a bucket.
• Wardrobe malfunction in 5, 4, 3 ...
• We get it, Stan Borack—you are good at drawing hands. Stop showing off.
• "I don't know, Les, I think this tale might be a bit too savage. Do you think you could make it …?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Looks like this book was in Brian Sheridan's back pocket when he got into whatever he got into on the front cover. Books with war wounds!
• He came alive as a man. It was a good feeling. If this isn't a tale of sexual awakening, I'm gonna be very disappointed.
• What is up with the design on this cover? "The blue arrow going round and round symbolizes life's twists and turns, while the sloppy gray daubs that frame the arrow symbolize the artist's not giving a shit."

Page 123~

Jess Miller was helping a pair of bonneted women near the rear.

Because bonnets make it practically impossible to see back there.

~RP

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Paperback 801: Morgan's Daughter / H.G. de Lisser (Ernest Benn Ltd (UK) nn)

Paperback 801: Ernest Benn Ltd (UK) nn (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: Morgan's Daughter
Author: H.G. de Lisser
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• "Remove the ascot at once, or you will force me to make use of what appears to be an awfully anachronistic-looking handgun … sir."
• I hope this is a bodice-ripper, 'cause she's certainly ready.
• He has double fear hand! Or else "Air Keyboard Hands."
• I wanted this to be Morgan le Fay's daughter, but no.
• I picked this up in Owego a couple weeks ago, during an impromptu trip to a bookstore basement. Nothing Great, but plenty of Good.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Complacency returned"! Phew! Slavery was really rough for white people.
• The name "Three-fingered Jack" is making me thirsty for whiskey.
• Oh … *Captain* Morgan is her dad. I just got that. Now I want rum.
• With such awkward punctuation and grammar, what might not be the meaning of that last question?
• Wait, she became the "mistress" of *all* the slaves (and maroons!)? What might not be possible?

NOTE: Maroon
n.

1. often Maroon

a. A fugitive Black slave in the West Indies in the 17th and 18th centuries.

b. A descendant of such a slave.

2. A person who is marooned, as on an island.

Page 123~

Captain Thornton was a man of action. And now he was a soldier attending to his duty. He swung himself off his horse and his men followed his example. So did Cudjoe.

I wish I could tell you Cudjoe was a man-eating Saint Bernard. I really do.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

P.S. Should be back to a roughly 3x/week posting schedule now, for the foreseeable future.

Paperback 785: O'Mara / Laurence Greene

Paperback 785: Lion 182 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: O'Mara
Author: Laurence Greene
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Drunk guy remembers that one time he was really drunk.
• It is my life's ambition to be a swaggering hellhound. 
• Well that's either "fear hand" or "remembering-breast-feel hand." For womankind's sake, I'm gonna go with "fear hand."
• Any sane cover artist would've shrunk Tipsy McBowtie and blown up the languorous becouched redhead.

Best things about this back cover:

• Fred T. Marsh knows from "unlaydownable." Just ask the ladies.
• Least shocking tagline of all time: "O'MARA WAS A MAN"
• "He was enormous with a woman" — but only with a woman. In the locker room: puny. Hashtag magicpenis.
• FRANK (ly brutal)!!!!! Oh, I've missed you, "frank." It's been a while.

Page 123~

Living in New York through the wettest Prohibition years, she had come to think of intoxication as a generally droll state.

That needs to be a caption underneath a picture of a flapper on the wall of some New York bar. Like, yesterday. Make it happen, NYC!

~RP

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Paperback 774: Strive and Succeed / Horatio Alger (Value Book 102)

Paperback 774: Value Books 102 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Strive and Succeed
Author: Horatio Alger
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Strive and succeed at beating the shit out of other boys.
• "Yeah, I took your tie. Whaddya gonna do about it, punk?!"
• This must be the part where the boy grabs his bootstraps and pulls himself up. Otherwise, it just looks like some rich, entitled fuck is picky on the poor drunk kid.

Best things about this back cover:

• That name again: HORATIO ALGER!
• Aw, man, for a split-second I read that as "stories … of hard-on success," and I was intrigued.
• I once read a book about a "supposedly worthless mine." It was called "The Luminaries." I wish I had read this one instead, for many reasons, not least of which is its reasonable 184-page length.

Page 123~

The two boys started for the school, and arrived nearly half an hour early. They entered the house, and, by means of a stout cord, soon secured the hen to the "master's" chair.

It's a heart-warming tale of honesty, thrift, perseverance and poultry pranks.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 766: Cruise Nurse / Joan Sargent // Calling Dr. Merryman / Margaret Howe (Ace Double F-101)

Paperback 766: Ace Double F-101 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Cruise Nurse / Calling Dr. Merryman
Author: Joan Sargent / Margaret Howe
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire] / Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Even on dumb, forgettable nurse fiction, Maguire's art is Gorgeous (at least I think it's Maguire—at least one bookseller attributes it to him; she Definitely has Maguire Hair)
• I want to go where she's going.
• For some reason I'm finding both the title font and the seagulls incredibly charming. In fact, the whole thing shouts "60s good-time fun" so hard that I'm having a hard time disliking anything about it, including overdressed waving dipshit there.

Best things about this other cover:

• Well … DARE HE!?
• Ah, the tale of a magnanimous doctor who deigns to screw the nurse everyone thinks is a whore. What a dreamboat.
• I like to think she just punched Dr. Merryman really hard in his right arm.
• "Calling Dr. Merryman … come in Dr. Merryman … we are still unable to locate the bottom half of your body … please stand by …"
• Don't pay …. the Merryman! ('80s music reference for y'all!)

Page 123~

"Elise thinks I'm a beauty," Clay said plaintively.

Try saying "Clay said plaintively" five times fast. Go ahead. I'll wait.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 741: Lady in Peril / Lester Dent // Wired for Scandal / Floyd Wallace (Ace Double D-357)

Paperback 741: Ace D-357 (PBO /PBO?)

Title: Lady in Peril / Wired for Scandal
Author: Lester Dent / Floyd Wallace
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Nice, ominous, off-kilter, killer-POV shot. 
• She has incredibly good posture for someone about to be brutally murdered. Style points for erect bearing and dramatic hand placement.
• This painting is like a giant metaphor for "No Means No"—What part of "Do Not Enter" do you not understand!?
• Lester Dent helped create the pulp hero Doc Savage.

Best things about this other cover:

• LOVE the design on this one. Strategic bursts of red against a semi-abstract green/white background. Nice variation on the floating head motif. Green rectangle with the tagline "Tune In And Die" brings balance and drama. 
• Those guys are amazing dancers. Shake those hips, boys!
• I kind of dress like the victim but I secretly aspire to dress like the killer.

Page 123~

"Can I look around?"
"Look, but keep your prints to yourself."
"I left some last night."

"If you know what I mean…"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]