Paperback 1092: The League of Frightened Men / Rex Stout (Avon 20)

 Paperback 1092: Avon 20 (PBO, 1942)

Title: The League of Frightened Men

Author: Rex Stout

Cover artist: I.N. Steinberg

Condition: 6.5/10 (well worn but tight and sturdy)

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• That's a honey of a cover, Mrs. Dietrichson (since this lady's hair is almost as bonkers as Barbara Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity, I had to make the reference; had to)
• Lacquered. That is how I believe you'd describe ... well, everything about this woman. Those eyebrows are ready for battle. And that is the side-iest sideeye I ever saw. Lethal.
• Dig that spooky, wavy title font. Man, they do not make 'em like they used to. This is a swell-looking book, stem to stern
• Floating heads! I live for the floating heads motif, especially when the woman surrounded by the heads is completely untroubled by the heads, like "what do you suckers want?" See also ...

And now the back cover ...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Meh. Your standard Shakespeare-head stuff. Boilerplate. 
• "Shakespeare! Get yer hot pink Shakespeare, here! Just two bits!'
• "GOOD BOOKS" but merely "Great Authors"; even capital letters were subject to war rationing
• Wait, did books used to be hard to open??? "How do you work this thing!!?"

Page 123~

    "For God's sake keep still. Don't move your head." I looked at Wolfe and said, "Somebody's tried to cut her head off. I can't tell how far they got."

    She spoke to Wolfe. "My husband. He wanted to kill me."

Well, she's talking, so as attempted beheadings go, you gotta put this one down as a failure. Still, she does bleed every time she moves her head, so it had dramatic results, at least. I found the last Stout I read (Fer-de-Lance) a little (lot) ridiculous, despite the great characterization, but I gotta say this p. 123 bit has got me re-interested in Wolfe World. Might give it another go.

~RP

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Paperback 375: Death of a Doxy / Rex Stout (Bantam F3476)

Paperback 375: Bantam F3476 (2nd ptg, 1967)

Title: Death of a Doxy
Author: Rex Stout
Cover artist: [photo cover]

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• DOXY is one of the great words of the English language:

n. Slang, pl., -ies.

1. A female lover; a mistress.
2. A sexually promiscuous woman.

[Perhaps from obsolete Dutch docke, doll.]

• Just 'cause they're in a dish doesn't mean you're supposed to *eat* the cigarette butts, dearie. What did you think was going to happen?
• What is she doing with her right hand and are we sure she's really dead? Maybe she just gets turned on by the smell of ashtrays.
• I keep meaning to read a Rex Stout novel. And I keep not doing it. It might become my New Year's resolution. One of them.

Best things about this back cover:

• Blah blah blah text! Oooh, "honey-haired corpse," that's nice.
• I almost love the ads for other books on the backs of pbs like this one. Who is Edwin O'Connor and what are these "bestsellers" I'm supposed to have heard of. Coincidence: Carroll O'Connor was in "All in the Family." Also, another coincidence: as I was typing "O'Connor," singer Jennifer O'Connor came on my iTunes shuffle (and I'm shuffling 7700 songs ... 35 of which are by artists with last name O'Connor).

Page 123~ (book is so short that p. 123 = "About the Author"—so, Page 23)

She was tops at ignoring questions.

Wow, I really love that sentence.

~RP

P.S. apologies for the slow pace of new posts. End-of-semester blecch. Won't last.

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Paperback 173: Too Many Clients / Rex Stout (Signet J2334)

Paperback 173: Signet J2334 (1st ptg, 1962)
Title: Too Many Clients
Author: Rex Stout
Cover artist: Bill Johnson

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I love my blankie!"
• This is more mustard than any one cover should have to endure.
• The floating head of Nero Wolfe looks none too pleased with this flirtatious, naked hussy. It's as if he's thinking "So this is what selling books has come to - PFUI!"
• Good example of how paperback sellers learned to develop brand recognition - the whole left panel, with huge author name and logo Nero head, will get repeated on a whole series of Rex Stout mysteries. Thus cover art gets squished - the title seems almost irrelevant.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Sex wasn't Nero Wolfe's specialty" - yeah, we can pretty much tell from his expression on the cover
• Someone should win an award for the phrase "satin-upholstered bower of carnality."
• An ad for a John O'Hara book! I Love John O'Hara, and he used to be Ridiculously popular.
• Bantam is one of the few publishers I can think of who would use their back covers to advertise books Not by the author of the book itself - though this ad seems oddly placed and poorly demarcated, with nothing but a font color change and a black bar to let you know the bottom half of the back cover is unrelated to the top.

Page 123~

"They killed him. That's obvious. They killed him."

Well of course they killed him. That's obvious.

~RP