Paperback 868: Framed In Blood / Brett Halliday (Dell 578)

Paperback 868: Dell 578 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Framed in Blood
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10

Best things about this cover:

• "Mmm hmm, I'd like to frame *that* in blood … wait, that came out creepy."
• Sideboob. Someone call HuffPo.
• "Was it an accident she left the door open? … I mean, it's like she *wants* me to furtively masturbate in her living room or something."
• And when the fairy princess finished her Tai Chi, Mike knew he'd wasted his time.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmmmapback!
• Mmmmmiami!
• Mmmmike Shayne!
• Mmmmmasturbation! (see cover)
• Oooh, Ned Brooks' apartment. That *is* interesting.

Page 123~

Shayne's sore face muscles rebelled at an attempt at a wry grimace.

In fact, most of Mike's muscles rebelled at the shit Mike tried to do. You see, Mike was an idiot, and...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 858: Only in L.A. / Murray Sinclair (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 858: Black Lizard unnumbered (1st ptg, 1988)

Title: Only in L.A.

Author: Murray Sinclair

Cover artist: Kirwan

Estimated value: $8-12

Best things about this cover:

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the first Pop Sensation book with a "1988" date.
• It's like she's daring the peeping toms. "You want some of this? Well, let's go! … Pussies."
• That is one of the '80s-est ladies ever. She looks like she's getting ready to go out to audition to be the lady on the cover of Duran Duran's "Rio." Or maybe she's headed out to visit her friend, this lady:

[Artist I'm thinking of is Patrick Nagel.]

And the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, so much high-contrast teeny tiny white text. Gah. Horrible.
• Back cover copy makes the story sound routine: "the usual political work"? "You know, blah blah whiskey blah blah corruption blah blah guns gutter dogs sleaze gun butt noir."
• This sounds like a slightly more interesting "Taken."

Page 123~

Aikens had talked turkey. He hadn't made a mistake or bullshitted me. I told my soul brother I wanted to go over there. 

Long story short, totally not-racist white narrator's black friend "Aikens" gets blown apart by gun fire before the page is over.

~RP

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Paperback 721: Operation: SEX / Kimberly Kemp (Midwood F181)

Paperback 721: Midwood F181 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Operation: SEX 
Author: Kimberly Kemp
Cover artist: Paul Rader

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Operation: LACK OF IMAGINATION
• I have an alternative title for this book: Naughty Pine.
• This cover manages to be both deeply disturbing and super hot. Indirect evidence of nudity = very effective.
• You have to love the absurdity of the pull-down window shade in the foreground—it's architecturally impossible, of course, but does a cool job of implicating us in the voyeurism.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa. Ruby? Tell me more about Ruby. The cover said nothing about Ruby.
• "Anything!"
• Talk about burying the lede—how is the front cover not more lesbianified? I mean, I love the cover, but if lesbian pulp has taught me anything (and it Has), it's that when your book has lesbian sex in it, some visual/textual indication of that goes on the cover. No beating around the bush. As it were.

Page 123~

She visualized the tiny droplets striking the shoulders and then draining down in liquid rivulets, down over those peaked breasts. Down. Across that smooth belly and down into—

End of paragraph. I assume the next words were going to be the aforementioned bush, but who knows?

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]