Title: Sweet and Deadly
Author: Verne Chute
Cover artist: [A. Leslie Ross]
Yours for: $12
Best things about this cover:
- So Many Great Things that I'm kind of paralyzed. I saw this last weekend at a bookshop in Ithaca and snapped it up without even looking at the price. I think this is one of my 20 favorite covers of all time.
- So Much Action. The cover would be worth it for her alone—the baddest-looking Girl With a Gun in my collection—but we get Smashed Face McTireIron thrown into the bargain as well. How many ways were they planning on killing that poor blond guy?
- Suicide doors!
- Double Fear Hand! Or is he just dancing because she said so?
- The art here balances pure hard-boiled action with a soft, luminous delicacy. Love.
Best things about this back cover:
- That's what they all say.
- Wow, that's some pretty overt gropiness there at the beginning.
- "What did you say your name was? 'Methane?'" "It's MEL Thane, doll. Don't you forget it." "I already have."
- If that blond guy is Mel, I am *super* glad she shot him.
Page 123~
Mel's match lighting a cigarette made a harsh sound. "I've got a sort of client who's being blackmailed. He managed to steal a few things out of a blackmail mob's file . . ."
Ew, Mel is the *detective* in this story? Oh well, my desire that he get shot stands.
~RP
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