Paperback 1171: The Case of the Backward Mule / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 855)

Paperback 1171: Pocket Books 855 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Case of the Backward Mule

Author: Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover artist: Frank McCarthy

Condition: 6/10    

Value: $8

Best things about this cover: 

• It's too bad this is such a vile representation of violence against women ("she had it coming!"?), because it's a great action painting. Her posture, her face, her hands ... her hair! The hair is like its own entity, a force of nature separate from whatever human drama surrounds it. The hair is eternal. The hair will be here after the Backward Mule is dead and buried (I'm assuming the dude is the Backward Mule). 
• Real talk: I kinda like my man's accent color.
• Weirdly, despite having a Perry Mason-like "The Case of the ___" title, this book is not a Perry Mason book! Instead, it features someone named Terry Clane, "Student and friend of the Orient (!) who does some amateur sleuthing in San Francisco." The whole book is set firmly in the world of SF's Chinatown, which you could never, ever tell by the cover (or the back cover, for that matter)

Best things about this back cover: 

• "A cigarette dangled from her lower lip"—classic image. They could've put that on the cover.
• "She spat out" lol I like this dame. She should hit him. That would be more believable. And enjoyable. 
• The writing here is florid. Sub-pulp. Borderline corny. I don't hate it. "She was as touchy as a trainload of nitroglycerine." LOL. Someone's been watching Wages of Fear (which hadn't come out yet, though the novel on which it's based came out just one year before this paperback was published)
• "Pure, overdeveloped viciousness" is my favorite kind of viciousness. None of these cheap knock-offs. I need it unadulterated and swollen!

Page 123~

    "In our business, we don't do too much speculative thinking, Mr. Clane. We investigate. And when we investigate we make it a point to cover all of the possibilities."
    "I see," Clane said.

    "Even," Malloy went on, "including that poker-faced Chinese servant of yours, Yat T'oy."

    "I see," Clane said.

He can't really do anything, but man can he see!

~RP

P.S. Frank McCarthy seems to have specialized in punch-in-the-face covers. Here's another one from my collection (Paperback 397)

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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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