Paperback 1131: The Company She Keeps / Mary McCarthy (Dell 824)

Paperback 1131: Dell 824 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Company She Keeps

Author: Mary McCarthy

Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Condition: 7/10

Value: $10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• I took one look at this and said "Maguire" so fast, I surprised even myself. Utter certainty. The guy had a style, and that style was Quintessential GGA (Great Girl Art). Robert McGinnis has probably the most recognizable style of all paperback cover artists, but for me, Bob Maguire is undefeated. Best of the best. He doesn't even have a lot of room to do his magic here, and yet that face, those lips, those (perfect) hands—unmistakable.
• Every time I look at this cover—every single time—I see an empty coupe glass in her right hand. And then I see that it's just an illusion created by the corner of the train (?) window behind her—an illusion reinforced by the bottle of booze on the ledge behind her.
• Just put some a cigarette, some booze, and a world-weary dame on your cover and I am happy. If she's on a train, even better.
• I love how paperbacks sexed up everything by the mid-50s, even "literary" fiction like this. Mary McCarthy is not exactly slinging sleaze, but there's no reason she can't look like she is. There are very few books that could be improved, looks-wise, by The Maguire Treatment.

Best things about this back cover: 

• She's like the antithesis of the woman on the cover, all brightness and smiles. She seems lovely, but I yearn for the down-and-outness of the flip side of this book.
• "Writes like a man"—ugh, these midcentury critics who are still startled to find a woman writer who is good and also frank about sex. Speaking of frank ...
• "Frank!" My favorite cover copy adjective. Feels like it's been a long time since I've seen "frank." I have a "Frank" tag for this blog and everything. Welcome back, old friend. I love "frank" because it's like the book's winking at you, like "psst ... it's dirty, c'mon, read it! You know you wanna..."

Page 123~

He made you think of Boy Scouts and starting a fire without matches and Wesley Barry and skinning the cat and Our Gang comedies and Huckleberry Finn. If he had ever been hard up, he could have been a photographic model, and one could have seen his pleasant, vaguely troubled face more often in The Saturday Evening Post than in Esquire. He might have done well as the young man who is worried about his life insurance, the young man who is worried about dandruff, the young man whose shirts won't fit him, the young man who looks up happily from his plate of Crunchies, saying, "Gee, honey, I didn't know breakfast food could taste so good!"

Frankly, this is great. It goes on like this (the chapter is called "Portrait of the Intellectual as a Yale Man"), and it doesn't get worse. I've never read McCarthy before, but I might have to give her a try.

~RP

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Paperback 1127: Golden Tramp / Daoma Winston (Beacon B 272)

 Paperback 1127: Beacon B 272 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Golden Tramp

Author: Daoma Winston

Cover artist: Uncredited [Harry Barton]

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Her name is Gay? Bit on the nose, don't you think? I mean ... whither subtlety?
• It's like she's eating his face with her neck. Some kind of weird reverse vampire.
• "Your head feels so good, Steve!" "Mmmfrphywtuh"
• There's something oddly, bizarrely, unexpectedly charming about the pink stripes on the pillow.
• I approvingly acknowledge the hint (the barest hint) of garter hook.
• I love the cover copy's anguished "WHY?" "Why oh why won't she give up this endless orgy of the flesh and join the endless orgy of the mind!?"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ransom note font, wtf?
• OMG there really is a "Steve" in this thing. Nailed it!
• "Maybe it was Tom who turned Gay from men." So ... he turned Gay ... gay? Seriously, the protagonist's name is not helping you, Daoma.
• I'm not sure "tete-a-tetes" means what you think it does, Daoma. Unless ... "tete" ("head") is a euphemism for some other body parts that they're putting ... together ...
• Holy shit, plot twist! Peter covets Jonathan!? Who the fuck is Jonathan? You can't just drop Peter's queerness *and* a new character into the very last sentence. I don't even care about Gay anymore. I need to know about Peter and Jonathan! I hope they're happy (but since they're gay in a 1950s paperback, safe bet is that they are probably not, in fact, happy).

Page 123~

"Well, you know what he did? Went off and married one of those drive-in girls in the shiny shirts, and dimpled knees showing. And the funniest thing happened. It turned out she's some kind of an heiress or something. Couldn't have happened at a better time, or to a nicer guy."

Man, it's like Daoma Winston's got a barreful of premises for novels and she's just gonna dump them all into one book. Now I need to know about the heiress who is also somehow a dimple-kneed shiny-shirted drive-in girl ... which is apparently a type? I want to live inside a late '50s Beacon paperback, if just for a day. It sounds wild.

~RP

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Paperback 1123: Miss America / Daniel Stern (Popular Library G464)

Paperback 1123: Popular Library G464 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Miss America

Author: Daniel Stern

Cover artist: [Mitchell Hooks]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Now that's a redhead. That hair's so orange it's pink.
• Wow, this lady really likes stationery.   
• This is a movie tie-in. I've never heard of this movie. What's more, I cannot find any proof that this movie exists, or ever existed. Nothing by this name appears in Carroll Baker's filmography, and nothing she made in this general time period seems to have been based on this novel. I have no idea why they'd say there was a movie when there is no movie. I feel like I've uncovered a mystery. Possibly a very boring one, but still. Mystery!

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, not to be that guy, but ... well, I am that guy, so ... it's The Beautiful and Damned, not The Beautiful and the Damned, dammit. This blurb is not up to the lofty editorial standards I expect from the ... [squints] ... Lansing State News.
• "Her most intimate statistics were common knowledge." What could her "most intimate statistics" be? What are anyone's "most intimate statistics?" Number of sex partners? Bra size? Cholesterol? 
• This back cover copy tells you precisely nothing except that there's some hot celebrity "goddess" and she ... has a life ... not covered by the press. You don't say!

Page 123~

Just before we rang the bell, Cathy turned to me and said, "I've got a confession to make. You know that first night, when you played those quartets? I came expecting to hear jazz quartets. I thought I'd fall down when you started taking out the string instruments."

String instruments!? Well, sure, that's enough to make anyone fall down. I'm writing this from the floor right now, and that's just from hearing about it.

~RP

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Paperback 1107: The Razor's Edge / W. Somerset Maugham (Pocket Books 418)

 Paperback 1107: Pocket Books 418 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Razor's Edge

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Cover artist: [Uncredited]

Condition: 6/10

Value: $7

Best things about this cover: 

• He touched her face. It was just as he suspected—whiskers! Steve knew right then that before he could make Janie his bride, her face would need to experience ... The Razor's Edge!
• Tonight, Janie decided, she would end things. Steve had coochie-coochie-coo'd her chin for the last time!
• This cover is back from when Pocket Books was still trying to make their books look serious and literary, i.e. boring. I would've sent this back to the art director with a simple three-word note: "Too Much Sky!"
• I love the insane specificity of Pocket Books's numbering scheme from this era. Individually numbered books—what was the appeal supposed to be!? They coulda just gone with the "Millions and Millions Sold" thing like McDonald's and that would've probably done the trick. What was I supposed to feel upon purchasing the one hundred and fifty-eight million two hundred and twelve thousand three hundred and tenth Pocket Book? Elation? Ennui? I can't exactly collect all the ones I'm missing! Ridiculous.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The permagloss is gone, the book is grimy, and abrasions have left part of the back cover copy illegible. Yet the spine is tight and nearly square and the book opens and reads easily. This is a perfect reading copy, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it's not.
• I think I read Maugham's Of Human Bondage once, around the time I was in college, because my friend claimed it was his favorite novel. I mean, I assume it actually was his favorite novel, why would he lie? Anyway, I don't remember the book. And I've never read any other Maugham. All I know about this book (The Razor's Edge) is that there was a movie version starring Bill Murray that came out some time in the '80s, and that (famously?) flopped. Apparently there's also a Tyrone Power / Gene Tierney version. That sounds hot.
• What also sounds hot? Frustrated widows, lusty beauties, and complete degradation. I might have to put this on my reading list (which is infinity books long already, but who knows!? I might get to it someday).

Page 123~

I couldn't help smiling. I could imagine what Larry had looked like then, in his patched shirt and shorts, his face and neck burnt brown by the hot sun of the Rhine valley, with his lithe slim body and his black eyes in their deep sockets. I could well believe that the sight of him set the matronly Frau Becker, so blond, so full-breasted, all of a flutter with desire.

That's some pretty specific, pretty carnal imagining you're doing there, buddy. Are you sure it's Frau Becker who's "all of a flutter with desire"? 

~RP

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Paperback 1104: The Storm and the Silence / David Walker (Lion Library LL33)

 Paperback 1104: Lion Library LL33 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Storm and the Silence

Author: David Walker

Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm guessing she's the storm and he's the silence. Just a hunch.
• TFW your girlfriend catches you playing with your ...  hey, what the hell is that anyway? A doll? A flash? A candlestick? A cakepop?
• This guy has too much neck. Just ... too much square footage on this cover is given over to his beeftacular neck. Not at all proportional to his torso. Deeply disturbing. But not as disturbing as ...
• Her hand! What horrid accident befell her!? Is she giving him some weird sign with her right hand, or did she lose her index and middle fingers in a cheese slicer accident? The pinky is bent at a preposterous, unnatural angle. The thumb is so thin it barely counts as a digit. Just a complete nightmare, that hand.
• Hey, maybe he's holding (fondling) the case she keeps her fingers in?

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love it when women cackle while two hapless saps beat the shit out of each other. It's weirdly a thing in paperback cover art, women who get turned on by or are otherwise entertained by violence. Actually, she less amused than bored. "Ugh, this again. I'm just gonna sit here with my beaker of whiskey until you boys are through,"
• Captain Beefneck is pursued by zombie sheriff. That's a plot line I could get into.
• If I were Tam Diamond, the only secret I'd want to keep is that my momma named me after a Scottish hat

Page 123~

"Mine's a port," Maggie said at once. She was a hard-necked one. She'd need to be, always being the goose-gog, always being a drag on other folks.

The existence of goose-gog implies the existence of goose-magog. 

("goosegog" is the acid and prickly fruit of a shrub, fyi)

~RP

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Paperback 1100: The Devil Wears Wings / Harry Whittington (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 1100: Black Lizard [unnumbered] (1988)

Title: The Devil Wears Wings

Author: Harry Whittington

Cover artist: Kirwan

Condition: 7/10

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm always impressed by artists who can draw hands but this is maybe too much hand. Creepy levels of hand. Like the digits are five different personalities operating independently of one another, just flying their own freak flags...
• I guess the hand has smashed through ... a bank ... window? And that's where the bank keeps the cash? Not sure that's where I'd keep the cash, but what do I know?
• That ring is insane. If you've got a ring like that, it better give you superpowers or some shit, because otherwise, tacky.
• Harry Whittington rules. Totally reliable read. Never bad, sometimes great, paperback-pulp legend. Never read this one. Got this copy so cheap, and it's already so broken in, that I might just move this one to the top of the "To Be Read" pile...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Of all the blurby adjectives, "effective" has to be the least ... effective. Effective at what? Exciting me? Putting me to sleep? Give me something more.
• Love the name "Buz"—just gonna presume it's pronounced "booze"
• BANK CAPER! Yes, please, thank you. This is definitely going to the top of the pile

Page 123~

    She stared at me as if trying to see inside me. I felt my face going white and bloodless. All my blood seemed to be congealing in the pit of my stomach. 

    "Buz—you—didn't do it?"

Pretty sure Buz did it. Just a hunch.

~RP

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Paperback 1094: Mardios Beach / Oakley Hall (Perma Books M-4042)

 Paperback 1094: Perma Books M-4042 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Mardios Beach

Author: Oakley Hall

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8-9/10 (mild dings to the corners, else perfect)

Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover: 

• "Wilma!"
• "Stella!"
• He was a heel and worshiped only one god—SUSPENDERS!
• William Holden just woke up and wants to know where his goddamn shirt is!
• The lady looks sad and frightened, but actually she's just petting and gently whispering to a small mouse on her arm named Marvin. "I don't know why the mean man is yelling, Marvin. Maybe he's rehearsing a play. You want some cheese?"
• His left hand is so dramatic, perhaps because his right fingers are caught in the hinges of the door?

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Frank" alert! "Frank" alert. We have "Frank," I repeat, we have "Frank"! (And "Brutally frank" at that—that's the best kind of frank!)
• Now I'm wondering how louses (lice?) are typically made.
• From what I gather from this back-cover description, this is a novel about a guy who just punches people in the groin over and over. It's a hard life, but if you wanna be a louse, you gotta put in the work.

Page 123~

"All right. Quick! What's a woman's function?"

"Give up? The answer is: to Find My Damn Shirt! These suspenders are startin' to itch! Now open this door right now. Hey, is Marvin in there? You and Marvin better not be talkin' about me again ..."

~RP

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Paperback 1089: Fashions for Carol / Nell Marr Dean // Barbara Ames, Private Secretary / Jeanne Judson (Ace Double F-112)

 Paperback 1089: Ace F-112 (1st ptg / PBO, 1961)

Title: Fashions for Carol / Barbara Ames, Private Secretary

Author: Nell Marr Dean / Jeanne Judson

Cover artist: [Rudy Nappi] / Uncredited

Condition: 7/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• See, the cover *wants* you to believe she's sizing him up as a romantic prospect, but I know she's really plotting how to take his job, or kill him. Or both. Enjoy your three-martini lunch, Steve. It may be your last.
• I love how Rudy Nappi was like "OK, if I you're not gonna let me do full-body art, I'm giving Everything I Got to this girl's hair!" The results are astonishing. Massive, swirling, architecturally impeccable.
• Again, I say, to no one in particular, that there's No Way she can actually see him from this angle. Artists get away with this physics-defying over-the-shoulder glance All The Time and I hate that it works. Even my brain is like "yes, she is giving him a sly sidelong glance" when I know that it is Physically Impossible unless there is a mirror somewhere off-screen. Stupid gullible brain.
• Steve's mad that he has to work somewhere so pink. "It's not manly is all I'm sayin'..." he mumbled

Best things about this back cover: 

• "'Just a small town girl ... living in a big time job' —nah, that doesn't rhyme. How 'bout "Just a small town girl ... brunette hair refused to curl'? No. '... runnin' from some guy named Earl'? Dammit, words are hard!" [Steve Perry writing "Don't Stop Believin'," probably]
• The art is much worse on this side of the book, but I want to live in this blue world of mid-century office furniture.
• I like Barbara. She's like "I refuse to pose sexy for you or the undertaker behind me or anyone. Now if you're quite through ogling me, I have work to do." Respect.
• What is that guy doing with his hand!? Flashing gang signs? Holding a sack of potatoes to his sternum? I wouldn't look at him either, Barbara.

Page 123~ (from Fashions for Carol]

    He pretended toughness. "But when we're married, you've got to come to every game. And you've got to be a good Texas Democrat."

    She quivered with a happiness she had never known before.

Wow, the orgasmic power of the phrase "Texas Democrat," who knew? 

~RP

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Paperback 1077: Dark Rapture / Kim Darien (Ace S-117)

Paperback 1077: Ace S-117 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Dark Rapture

Author: Kim Darien

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7    

Value: $10-12

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• "My left pinkie? Yeah, I broke that in a horrible bowling accident when I was a kid. Don't worry about it. Here, look at my right hand instead? Nice, right?"
• "Her? Nah, don't mind her, she's just the, uh, cleaning lady. Yeah, she likes to sleep on her smoke break. Does both at once. Sleep and smokes. Saves time."
• The blonde is the very definition of GGA (Great Girl Art), but it's like the painter was really more interested in directing your attention elsewhere—to the corny, chipper dude, yes, but most assuredly to the enigmatically sleep-smoking lady. Frankly, she is the only one whose story I care to know.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book hit me ... and it felt like a kiss.
• Love the visual [rrrrriiiiiipppp] 
• "Simmy knew she'd had a tough break. First of all, she was named Simmy. Strike one ..."
• "Downright swell" and "heel"—the two masculinities

Page 123~

Back under the wheel, Jerry remarked that was the kind of service he liked; service with a smile, the kind you didn't come across too often in the city. "People out here show the customer some courtesy. Swell bunch out here in the sticks, none better." He backed the Buick out of the parking lot.

"Yeah, they got real manners out here in Shitville. Classy bunch of people. Really know how to treat a guy right. Might do all my grocery shopping out here from now on, babe, whaddya say?" Can't tell if this guy is "Downright swell" or more the "Heel" type. Really feels ... latter.

~RP

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Paperback 1076: Professional Lover / Maysie Greig (Pocket Books 541)

Paperback 1076: Pocket Books 541 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Professional Lover

Author: Maysie Greig

Cover artist: "Front cover photograph by Halleck (!?) Finley"

Condition: 6/10

Value: $4-7

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I know it's a weird place to start, but her top is *amazing*. Zebra stampede!
• The perfect horizontal line from the top her head to the tip ofer her elbow, also amazing.
• I know "Making love to women is his job" sounds saucy, but it's 1948 so ... not so much (it just means he's a heartthrob movie star, sorry to disappoint).
• Dude is a dead ringer for Rock Hudson. I mean, if you ignore the rubberized hair piece, what the hell...
• I wonder how long they had to hold this pose. So much close breathing. Plus, his (giant!) hand looks like it's really working.
• The couch / wall color combo is particularly unappetizing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dang, his lips are really going to town, maybe this will be hotter than I thought
• Rex Brandon, I buy. Starr Thayle, I buy less.
• Cover copy writers still using clunky phrases like "had been accorded," that's how you know you're still in the '40s. Although "crashing climax" and "flaming tale" (!!) show promise.
• Halleck? That's a fish, not a name.

Page 123~

All afternoon they had been taking and retaking a couple of scenes on the yacht. Rex couldn't get them to Stephen's satisfaction. Almost as though Stephen derived a grim satisfaction in making the great Rex Brandon go over and over a certain take.

I would love to have a funny take here, but once again the editor in me is like "Why are there two 'satisfaction's in here? Do you not hear the repetition? Does it not jar your eardrums?" Copywriter: "Well, if my writing is not to your satisf-" Me: "Stop." Copywriter: "It's just that satisf-" Me: "Say 'Satisfaction' Again, M*****F*****! I dare you."

~RP

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Paperback 1075: By Blood Alone / Frank Corey (Berkley Medallion G494)

Paperback 1075: Berkley Medallion G494 (PBO, 1961)

Title: By Blood Alone

Author: Frank Corey (pseud. of George Fox)

Cover artist: [illegible signature, no artist credit, infuriating]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10-$12

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Watch out boy, she'll chew you up.
• She appears to be sitting in the blood of her (their?) prey. I assume she is the one who lives ... by blood alone. I love how she's looking at you (yes you, the reader) like "Hello, you're next. Oh, don't mind Larry. [turns to Larry in disgust] He was just leaving." [Larry, shouting like Sterling Hayden in The Long Goodbye] "Yeah, well, I need more than just blood, baby! Whiskey! Asparagus! Tic Tacs! The blood's great and all, but a man's gotta live! Nah, you have fun with your little friend here. I'll see you when I see you."
• Larry appears to have some kind of medallion nestled in his chest hair. Swingin'! He looks like he's getting ready to hit the disco, or maybe just do some light swashbuckling.
• Wrought-iron bed frames make a nice ornamental touch. Some great covers have been built around bed frames. Like this one (in fact ... is that Larry again? He gets around):

And now the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• "SCARRED" is a singularly un-grabby tagline, but it does rhyme with "marred" in the first sentence there, so I guess that's ... something. 
• Is there such thing as a *gentle* attack with a hammer?
• Please, hammer, don't scar 'em
• "Make the paragraphs red then black ... then black then red" "Okey dokey, any reason in part-" "I have no good ideas, OK, are you happy, just do it!"
• "Second generation" should be hyphenated. And speaking of hyphens, the "rack- / eteer" line break is killing me.
• There should be a comma after "head," why am I doing all the copyediting work here, come on!

Page 123~

"What is he?" Rebellion and disillusionment rang in the simple question.

"A renegade without money or ties, virtually cut off from human society."

That last bit would look cool on a business card.

~RP

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Paperback 1073: Girl Out Back / Charles Williams (Dell First Edition B114)

Paperback 1073: Dell First Edition B114 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Girl Out Back

Author: Charles Williams

Cover artist: Darcy

Condition: 7/10

Value: $40-50

Best things about this cover:

• Saw this yesterday under glass at the cash register at a used bookstore in Saratoga Springs and impulse-bought it so fast I almost felt guilty. Paid more than I've paid for a vintage paperback in a while and still paid less than what it's worth. It's Charles Williams, after all, and a first edition, and a Beaut!
• What makes a book desirable may be many things, and this book has a bunch of them. Name author. Paperback original. Great Girl Art. Legible artist signature and/or artist credit (this may not be important to everyone, but it is to me!). Only the tiniest of spine leans. A square, tight copy. I could do without the sticker pull on the price (grrr) and the back (as you'll see) has a top-to-bottom crease, but ... I mean, it's pulp fiction, a little wear/tear gives it some character, imo.
• The print and drape of the dress is fantastic. The cover is not as lurid as the ones I tend to gravitate toward, but it's unusual in appealing ways—a Coke bottle instead of a martini glass, a dock instead of a bar, rural instead of urban, day instead of night. The text prods me to lurid imagination, but that's just it—the painting leaves a Lot of room for imagination. Will she brain that guy with her soda bottle and steal his boat? Will she join him on a fishing expedition? Is he actually three inches tall? Is she 100 feet tall? So many possibilities...
• I love the exposed knee, as well as the hint of cleavage. There is something odd about the left hand. Looks boneless. But otherwise, she's very well put together.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks like an eighth-grade science teacher
• If the husband makes it through the novel, I'll be stunned
• OK, the weirdo in me is actually most intrigued by "... and an old hermit for a friend." There's a relationship you don't see every day.
• "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Swamp (After They've Seen Barney Godwin)?"

Page 123~

"No," he said. I noticed there was no "sir" now. "I reckon you wouldn't take no chances with me. Goin' to be quite a feather in your cap when you bring me in, ain't it?"

"I'll probably be promoted," I said. "So you just behave yourself, and none of your slippery tricks."

But it was too late. With a snap of his fingers, Cliffords turned himself into an eel and swam away. I shook my fist in impotent fury. "Damn you, Cliffords! First the banana peel on the prison steps, now this!? When will it end!?"

~RP

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Paperback 1067: The Skull Beneath the Skin / P.D. James (Warner 30606)

Paperback 1067: Warner Books 30-606 (1st ptg, 1983)

Title: The Skull Beneath the Skin

Author: P.D. James

Cover artist: Victor Gadino

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• Love how unapologetically literal the cover is. "Look at her skin ... such lovely skin ... but ... uh, oh, what's beneath that skin? Could it be ... a skull!! Bwah ha ha ha open the book, If You Dare!"
• And the inside cover? So. Much. Happening!

• This was published much later than most of the books in my collection (which stays mostly in a tight 1939-69 range), but I've begun expanding my range of interest into the '70s and '80s as books that once seemed "too modern" to me now turn out to be fascinating examples of vanishing if not completely bygone book design. This is pure supermarket checkout line stuff, but the stepback keyhole cover—something I would've thought cheesy thirty years ago—now strikes me as bold, theatrical, ornate ... I mean, imagine popular thrillers today looking like *this* instead of, well, like this:

If you are publishing a crime novel that DOESN'T have a dark house with yellow windows and yellow text, you are off to the gulag. I don't make the rules. pic.twitter.com/PLwaQjdr4I

— Caustic Cover Critic, not necessarily a bad person (@Unwise_Trousers) March 7, 2023

• I'm also fascinated by the fact that this stepback keyhole treatment isn't for a book by, say, V.C. Andrews (the author most associated with this exact kind of cover)—rather, it's for P.D. James, an extremely literary (and extremely British) mystery writer that I wouldn't have thought ripe for this kind of aggressively popular (populist) marketing. Lawrence Sanders, Stephen King, sure, but P.D. James!? I feel like there's a clash of cover aesthetic and actual content ... and I love it!
• She really is a great writer. I read the first few pages just now; only meant to pop in and have a glance, but she just grabs you and takes you.

Best things about this back cover:

• Just blurbs, along the lines of "No, seriously, if you're the kind of person who reads blurbs and want assurances of quality from reputable periodicals, here, look, here's a bunch of them. It's not 'trash,' we swear!"
• That little hint of illustration there at the bottom right? That's from the delicious (and deliciously wraparound) spinal art! Bring back spinal art! I want my spines to stare sexily at me! Is that too much to ask!?

Page 123~

Cordelia, happily engrossed in old copies of The Illustrated London News and The Strand magazine, in which she could read the Sherlock Holmes stories as they originally appeared, wished that she could have been left in peace. 

Yes, I like this Cordelia. We would get along marvelously, I think. I too like to read old stories as they originally appeared, and don't get me started on being left in peace. Heaven. Call me, Cordelia. We can sit and read and say nothing to each other.

~RP

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Paperback 1045: Abnormal Lover / Clark Connor (Merit Book 507)

Paperback 1045: Merit Book 507 (2nd ptg, 1961)

Title: Abnormal Lover
Author: Clark Connor
Cover artist: "Sloane" (uncredited)

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $20-25

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Jesus H, what kind of corset injury did she suffer as a young woman!?
• I love how she's like, "Yeah, they're stretch marks, so what!? I don't see you looking away!"
• I'm all for that vest-only look, but the pants seem a little ... bunchy.
• O god, her hand! Was that part of the corset accident!? I'm just glad she overcame adversity and went on to live her truth.
• "Bru-" is killing me. KILLING ME. How are you this bad at layout!?
• I assume her left pinky is the "point of perversion" in question.

Best things about this back cover:

• Better in black and white
• And the winner for Worst Compound Adjective in a Back Cover Blurb goes to ...
• I love how proud the artist ("Sloane!") was of this painting. "Y'all aren't cropping out my signature, dammit. I WILL LIVE THRU THE AGES!"

Page 123~

"I can't, Raymond. I don't have time to see Art Meric. I have to leave on a trip. A very important trip, Raymond!"
A long silence.
"What's wrong, Raymond? Raymond! Raymond!"

"I"m not going to be IGNORED, Raymond..."

Also

🎶"Everywhere around the world / They come to see Art Meric-a"🎶

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 1035: The Man With the Getaway Face / Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) (Pocket Books 6180)

Paperback 1035: Pocket Books 6180 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Man With the Getaway Face
Author: Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: I just paid $20 for it, which felt low

Best things about this cover:

• It's got Richard Stark's name on it
• Those. Hands.
• Harry Bennett has no time for GGA (Great Girl Art). Just put the freaked-out lady in the far back corner and give us more of the Mummy With Giant Hands!
• The hair on Those Hands is gonna haunt me
• My wife was with me when I bought this at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis, so she can attest that the following minor anecdote is true: we walked down the stairs to their basement-level store, I opened the door, saw this book directly in front of me, walked straight to it (looking at nothing and no one else), picked it up, checked the price, and knew it was mine. Then a nice woman appeared next to me and asked, in the hushed voice of someone suggesting something at least vaguely illegal, "Would you like to see our annex?" She explained that there was a room in the back where they kept their large supply of vintage paperbacks. Would I like to see it? Uh. Yes. Yes I would.

Best things about this back cover:

• Price tag ... is an interesting direction to go in, design-wise. By "interesting," I think I mean "bizarre." There is no consumer culture to speak of in this novel, which is about an armored-car heist.
• Also "interesting" that there's nothing on this tag about the details of the novel. The fact that he had plastic surgery is relevant, but it's not the main event. Why hide the action and describe the novel so vaguely that it sounds dull? It's like the copywriter couldn't be bothered to know anything about the plot and got all his info from the (admittedly longish) title.
• A cover that dramatic should not have a back cover this anemic.

Page 123~

Eleven thousand went into the box, which he then wrapped up and addressed: Charles Willis, c/o Pacifica Beach Hotel, Sausalito, California, Please Hold. Unless the Pacifica Beach had changed hands in the three years since he'd last been there, they would know enough to stick the carton into the hotel safe and forget about it till Parker showed up again.

This is making me remember this novel and how good it is. I really should plow through all the Parker novels, in order, once and for bleeping all. I've only made it through the first three, I think, before other things grabbed my attention. I think I have my next reading project now.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]