Paperback 1014: The Man-Hunter / Dick Donovan (Westbrook / American Detective Series No. 34)

Paperback 1014: American Detective Series No. 34 (Arthur Westbrook Co., date unknown)

Title: The Man-Hunter
Author: Dick Donovan
Cover artist: Unknown

Condition: 7/10 (considering how old it is: amazing)
Estimated value: ???????????
Best things about this cover:

• Before I get to the cover ... what is this book? I am having so much trouble getting good information about it. Seriously, this is the best I've been able to do so far: an entry at the Dime Novel Bibliography that tells me virtually nothing. I don't know what year it's from. I don't know who did the cover. The internet is being remarkably unhelpful so far. Any info you can supply would be much appreciated, thanks.
• Ok, the cover: so bright. There's some fading and foxing to the pages and back cover, the book is perfectly square and tight and the colors on this cover really pop. I think it's awfully beautiful, actually.
• I like that "The Man-Hunter" is lost and has to ask the nice lady for directions.
• Good horsey.

Best things about this back cover:

• As you can see, lots of Sherlock. Mostly, when I look for this publisher, it's Doyle info I find—perhaps unsurprisingly, as he's a highly collectible author, whereas the rest of these folks ... ?
• Oh, days of yore, your book titles were so much better. I am now desperate to read COP COLT, QUAKER DETECTIVE ... though I'll probably take a pass on CHIN CHIN, CHINESE DETECTIVE. . . 
• "Postage stamps taken same as money"—well that's a new one on me.

Page 123~

"You have obtained the absolute proofs of her death?"
"No, madame. I have glorious news for you."
The woman's face fell.
"Glorious news for me?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Kate Freelingburg lives."
"Ah!" came the quick ejaculation.

Now I really want a "Kate Freelingburg Lives!" t-shirt and/or bumper sticker.

~RP

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Paperback 933: Between Planets / Robert Heinlein (Ace 05501)

Paperback 933: Ace 05501 (1st thus, ca. 1970)

Title: Between Planets
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Cover artist: Steele Savage (!)
Frontispiece artist (!!!): Clifford Geary

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Est. value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• Nice dismount, Space Jesus!
• Someone was So High when they designed this.
• "So, like, the dragons have eyes, but then those eyes have eyes ... like, seven eyes ... and the dragons are swimming through, like, an algae-covered pond toward a tiny floating city, and then there's this muscly space preacher in a hot orange spandex body suit who's like 'AMEN!' ... oh my god this is gonna be sweet."

Best things about this back cover:

• Not to bring the room down too much, but this is really poorly written. It's like a 10-year-old trying to summarize a story.
• I see now why they needed the psychedelic nutjobbery of the front cover—to offset this soporific nonsense.
• "Don, the hero of this story" is an improbable sentence.

Bonus feature ... FRONTISPIECE!

Best things about this frontispiece:

• Oh, man, I'm gonna be having man-goat-chicken nightmares for days now...
• The twin dildos on top really tie the whole look together.
• The human appears to be unzipping his fly. I'm now a little worried for man-goat-chicken.

Page 123~

Involuntarily Don grunted with pain.

Choose your own context!

~RP

Paperback 772: The Mind Cage / A. E. Van Vogt (Tower 43-503)

Paperback 772: Tower Books 43-503 (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: The Mind Cage
Author: A. E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "No, God, no!!! Take me instead!!! Space Capades on Ice needs Debra!"
• Her false eyelashes unlocked the door to … The Mind Cage!
• "Voltaged?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Transplantation?"
• "He?"
• "His body tingled in a peculiar and nameless manner." — "That's perfectly normal, son. You're becoming a man, and …"

Page 123~

Marin returned to the laboratory, sobered by his own antics.

"That's perfectly normal, son. You're becoming a man, and …"

~RP

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Paperback 429: The Right Bed / Lee Walters (Saber Books SA-14)

Paperback 428: Saber Books SA-14 (unknown ptg & year, orig. 1959)

Title: The Right Bed
Author: Lee Walters
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "Homosexual demons, I cast thee OUT!"
• Original title: "Sexy Phrenologist"
• Wanda struggled to remember exactly how to treat a choking victim...
• Hey, Bill, if you want to avoid the Twilight Life, maybe you should move out of The Pinkest Apartment Building In the Universe.
• Conservative columnist Bill, humiliated that he'd been caught watching "Maddow," collapsed to the floor. Wanda knew how to save him from the temptations of liberalism—take him to "The Right Bed" (American Flag bed sheets, portrait of Reagan on the ceiling, etc.) and give him a taste of that sweet, sweet missionary action.
• ... and introducing: House Plant!

Best things about this back cover:

• Where's the stuff about Floyd (!) struggling with his sexuality!? I was promised a "twilight life" on the front cover.
• "What did Jill think of all this?" — of all What? The more you read this description, the less coherent it gets. So ... his ambition is realized through her ... and her ambition is him ... so the conflict is ... what? Nothing. This is a short story at best.
• I like how the writer takes his own metaphor literally: "Jill was his key ... With her he would open many doors." Maybe that's what we're seeing on the front cover: after trying repeatedly to stuff Jill into the keyhole, he collapsed in a pile of rage and shame.

Page 123~

Johnson roamed the paths of the party like a stray buffalo [1], big, almost shaggy, a look of massiveness [2] about his broad face.

• [1] "... like a stray buffalo, knocking over hors d'oeuvres and end tables, wondering how he got into a 5th-floor walk-up."
• [2] You cannot have a "look of massiveness." Something is either massive or it's not. "Your face looks strange darling. A bit ... massive." No.

~RP

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Paperback 409: The Party Was the Pay-Off / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Mercury Mystery 175)

Paperback 409: Mercury Mystery 175 (n.d. — early '50s, 1st ptg)

Title: The Party Was the Pay-Off
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Stefan Salter

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Aside from the fact that someone once used this book as a coaster (ugh), the book is lovely, square, bright. I think of Salter as more of a high-end illustrator than a dynamic cover artist, but I like his work nonetheless. Subtle, graceful, impressive.
• Can't decide if I like "Too Many Bottles" or "The Party Was the Pay-Off" better as a title. Thankfully, I own both versions, so I'm good. Not sure why they changed the title to get away from bottles and then made the cover concept all about bottles ... but they did, so there.
• Holding does suspenseful domestic drama better than anyone I know.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book is interesting if only for the fact that the protagonist, James Brophy, is a writer, and Holding has unique insight on the profession, as someone who had to deal with the implications of the pulps (working-class, male-oriented, low-paying) /slicks (middle-class, female-oriented, much better-paying) divide:

"But I'm no celebrity," he had explained. "So far , I've worked mostly for the pulps. I'm just beginning to break into the slicks."

She had wanted to know what the pulps were, and what the slicks; she had wanted to know what he was working on then; she had listened with an interest he had never before encountered.

"I think artists ought to be taken care of," she had said.

Brophy believed that he was a pretty good writer, and that someday he would be a very much better one, but he was not inclined to think of himself as an artist.

• Lulu's very name tells you everything you need to know about her. Pretty, bouncy, status-conscious, not the brightest — all in all, a poor match for Brophy. And quickly dead.

Page 123~

She spoke in a tone that was almost preposterously lofty. But that's the way she feels, poor devil, thought Brophy. Anything she does is right. Has to be, because she can always bring out such a noble motive.

"So don't worry, Jimmy," she said, with a pleasant social smile, and turned away to mount the stairs, followed by the matron.

~RP

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Paperback 162: The Black Curtain / Cornell Woolrich (Mercury Mystery 64)

Paperback 162: Mercury Mystery 64 (1st ptg, n.d.)

Title: The Black Curtain
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: [Stefan] Salter (I think that's his first name...)

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• The entire book is in pristine condition. OK, maybe "pristine" is pushing it, but for a digest-sized paperback (notoriously flimsy and easy to destroy through negligence) this book is in superhot condition.
• Cornell Woolrich is the father of modern noir. He is an amazing writer (most of the time). His authorship, the elegant if understated Salter cover, and the overall condition of the book are what's driving the price here. If only it weren't for that damned penciled-in "W" (after "Curtain" in the title). What, did some alphabetically challenged librarian need a cue on where to file it? Yeesh.
• Look, a blurb from a real media entity! Most of the books I collect seem to have escaped the NYT's notice (not shocking).

Best things about this back cover:

• This isn't the whole cover, just a close-up of the Mercury Mystery logo (the only thing on the cover - one logo and a whole lot of Brown). The design is superb - love how the flourish on the end of the first "M" spirals into a little dagger handle. Sweet.

Page 123~

A querulous thread of black unraveled from the open magazine; then freed itself, broke off short, went up into nothingness. No more followed.

You gotta love an author who will throw down "querulous."

~RP

Paperback 129: Negative Minus / R. L. Fanthorpe (Badger Books SF88)

Paperback 129: Badge Books SF88 (PBO?, ca. late '50s)

Title: Negative Minus
Author: R.L. Fanthorpe
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Is "Negative Minus" a thing? I need a math ruling.
• Shouldn't this book just be called "plus?" That, or "The Night I Went Trick-or-Treating Dressed as an Owl and Those Hippies Put LSD in the Candy Corn and The Great Uncle of The Great Gazoo Coaxed Me Into Killing People By Scratching My Nose and Promising Me More Candy Corn..."

Best things about this back cover:

• I believe this write-up was written under the influence of the aforementioned Gazoo juice. It's really vague ... and features a character with the most improbable name of "Stelgen"
• Alpha Centauri?! It's always Alpha Centauri with these people! Pick a new place!
• If "Stelgen" was "born" from a "star," I'm going to barf.
• New title for the book: "Stelgen Was Not a Genius." It would explain a lot about the cover (whichever one of those two folks "Stelgen" is...)

Page 123~

"I've never wanted anything so much," answered Suessydo. "I'm a normal, healthy, red-blooded male, but I've never met any attraction anywhere to equal the power, the pull of that voice. By the eight purple stars of Qoink, I've never heard such melody and such sweetness. By the seven blue dragons of Bfup, there was never such a melody before."

"You are using some strong oaths," returned Suhcolyrue.

"I use them as an expression of strong thoughts," replied the Captain.

I swear to you that none of that is made up. I'm just not that good. And now, inspired by the "Captain's" fantastic name, I leave you with Phil Collins.



Good day.

~RP

Paperback 125: Sad Cypress / Agatha Christie (White Circle n.n.)

Paperback 125: White Circle [no number] (1st ptg, undated, c. 1944)

Title: Sad Cypress
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Who Knows?

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• It's like Art Deco meets Evil - "Help, I'm being attacked by the Chrysler Building!"
• I like how "Sign of a good / detective novel" is so shabbily printed. Did they not have the technology to, say, center things in the 1940s?
• White Circle books are really hard to get hold of in the States. They are Australian, I think. There seems to have been a White Circle publishing out of Canada too. Maybe it's a Commonwealth imprint. At any rate, this book was published in Sydney.
• So basically this is a story about two ghosts who really hate trees ...

Best things about this back cover:

• EVERYTHING - do you know how rare it is to get a full-page ad on the back cover? Very. I think I have one other book with such a cover - that cover has an ad for men's belts (!?). This one, however, has cartoonery and poetry and disease paranoia and I'm gonna say quackery. So so so awesome.
• I can't decide if that officer is breaking up a fight or enforcing a quarantine.

Page 123:

Poirot waved a hand.
"There is nothing much to that! It might easily have been written by an educated person who chose to disguise the fact. That is why I wish you had the letter still. People who try to write in an uneducated manner usually give themselves away."

~RP

Paperback 124: Mark of the Beast / John E. Muller (Badger Books SF 105)

Paperback 124: Badger Books SF 105 (ed. unknown, ca. late 1950s)

Title: Mark of the Beast
Author: John E. Muller
Cover artist: Are you kidding? These damned British imprints give you Zero info - see (missing) publication info, above. You really think they're going to bother telling you the cover artist? Hah. Or maybe the cover artist deliberately had his name withheld so that he could avoid the shame of having to account for such a (literal) monstrosity of a painting. [update: Lionel Fanthorpe; see PS, below]

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Note: if you are going to cave in and give the gorilla chocolate, do not, I repeat, do not give him that cheap Toblerone crap from the Duty-Free shop.
• Oh my God that cackling rhombus-headed simian is going to haunt my dreams for Months!
• This book seems to be some kind of cross between Frankenstein and King Kong - but the monster design seems to have serious Coneheads influence
• Check out the teeny "N.Z." sticker. I normally hate price stickers on my books, but this one is Adorable.
• That's one convincing badger.

Best thing about this back cover:

• The monster returns, and though he appears to be electrified / radioactive, the pink background really softens his overall image: "The Mark of the Beast ... for Ladies"

Page 123:

Sprinting as though he were Britain's last hope in the Olympics, the Security man threw everything he had into reaching a doorway on the far side of the ape.

RP

PS it's April 2018 and I just got the following email:

Re Mark of the Beast - Badger Books 105 and your entry 124 [Aug 7 2008]:  The cover artist is Lionel Fanthorpe — aka R.L. Fanthorpe, who also wrote some of the Badger titles.  In fact, this is one of his titles — John E. Muller was one of his pseudonyms.  
I recently obtained a printer’s proof of the cover, signed by Fanthorpe.
You may now sleep easier.
Nice blog by the way.
Scott