Paperback 831: April Evil / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal d1579)

Paperback 831: Gold Medal d1579 (1st thus, 1965)

Title: April Evil
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Bill Johnson

Estimated value: $10-$15


Best things about this cover:

• The hot new book that finally answers the question: How many trenchcoated, fedoraed detectives does it take to find a lost contact lens?
• You know what they say: April Evil brings May Bondage.
• After looking at this picture, I wonder if it's not the "hold-up gang" that's "sleepy."
• This is a fine, if weird, painting. Good use of small canvas. Her simple white top and blue skirt, surrounded by the lurking, drab frames of generic menace, make her really pop off the page.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh.
• Don't you hate it when women choose the easy sluttish rut? Challenge yourselves, ladies!
• How can you be "going to flab" while "losing something in the guts department"? Writing 101: don't let your stupid metaphors cancel each other out.

Page 123~

She smiled, and she felt cat-agile, rabbit-soft, mare-ready.

This was a vast improvement from a half hour earlier, when she had felt dog-tired, armadillo-hard, and lemur-unprepared.

~RP

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Paperback 708: Nightmare in Pink / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal d1682)

Paperback 708: Gold Medal d1682 (3rd ptg, 1966)

Title: Nightmare in Pink
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: [Ron Lesser]

Yours for: $7 (yeah, I paid only $3, but ... inflation/postage — his books are being rereleased in $14 trade paperbacks ... why, WHY would you buy those when you can get beat-up '60s-era stuff, which is much cooler *and* much cheaper?)


Best things about this cover:

• Really hate the turn cover art took in the '60s—toward text/branding, away from full-page cover art—and I associate MacDonald's books most closely with that trend, to the extent that I almost blame MacDonald personally. Over the years, the girls get smaller, while the whole MacDonald/McGee Brand swells up and dominates. Probably smart marketing. But sucky from a purely aesthetic perspective. 
• I do like the way Pink suffuses every corner of this thing.
• Her hair is, frankly, terrible. 

Best things about this back cover:

• It's bad enough you've shrunk her and made her all modest on the front—this bland-and-white corner punishment is just degrading. Even John D's like "C'mon guys. Too far."
• OK, I haven't read a sexier phrase than "sweetly wanton career girl, living alone in a Manhattan walk-up" in a Long time.
• Not sure what is meant in this context by "Cafe Society," but I would like to join.
• "And introducing ... LSD!"

Page 123~

Terry Drummond rapped at my door and I let her in. She wore fifteen thousand dollars worth of glossy fur coat. Her brown simian face wrinkled with distaste as she looked around. "God, what a scrimey hole!" The coat swung open.

This is the kind of passage that makes me wonder why I have not read more MacDonald than I have. Love it.

~RP

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