Paperback 869: N Or M? / Agatha Christie (Dell 187)

Paperback 869: Dell 187 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: N Or M?
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Norm!
• The cigarette is puzzled. "What the hell does 'NORM' mean?" it wonders.
• Design on this is so bizarre. Everything's laid out at odd angles, the cigarette ashes have an eerie, vermiform look to them, and the whole thing kinda looks like a white whale with "NorM" tattooed to the side of its face is trying to fight the scourge of smoking by devouring all related paraphernalia in its sight.
• Gerald Gregg is a cover artist god. As early, non-sexy paperback covers go, his weird abstractions are my favorite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mappington! Backington! These never get old.
• If you call your place "Smuggler's Rest," the cops *are* going to find you.
• "Road." LOL. Thanks, map!
• If the devil doesn't live at Sans Souci, he will soon.

Page 123~

"Friends of friends of yours, I think you said?" Tommy suggested mendaciously.

Tommy always was a mendacious little bastard. I've always said that about him.

~RP

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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

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Paperback 867: The Dutch Shoe Mystery / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 2202)

Paperback 867: Pocket Books 2202 (11th ptg, 1958)

Title: The Dutch Shoe Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Jerry Allison

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• This cover says a lot of things, but one of the things it does *not* say is "Dutch Shoe."
• "But she could be number! NUMBER!"
• Pretty sure that's not a regulation police hold—at least not with gun drawn. Does look cool, though.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, signed by quote-unquote Ellery Queen. How elegant.
• "The patient was rich Abigail Doorn, whose money ran the hospital." Yeah, see, you would never introduce anyone "rich so-and-so," and also "whose money ran the hospital" kind of covers that.
• Also maybe don't put "more than life-size portrait of a heroic doctor" next to a super-tiny portrait of a doctor.

Page 123~

Djuna leaped out of his kitchen at the shrill br-r-ring of the telephone bell. "For you, Dad Queen."

I really, really want to believe that a Dad Queen is some kind of sex thing. Something men named "Djuna" would be in to. Please don't shatter my illusions, thanks.

~RP

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Paperback 866: African Poison Murders / Elspeth Huxley (Popular Library 100)

Paperback 866: Popular Library 100 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: African Poison Murders
Author: Elspeth Huxley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $12-17

Best things about this cover:

• "Here, African. Put this on. That's better." Hashtag racist.
• Actually, maybe the green guy is a sick European. He looks like a 17th-century actor who has eaten some bad mutton.
• If you stare too long at that foreshortened thumb, you will begin to get queasy. It's… not right. Kind of like the relationship between green head and blue body. Not right at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Read that second sentence as "Feces were smashed." Was briefly intrigued.
• A "native boy" wrapped in "baling wire." Hmm. That's a bit on the nose, as Slave-Trade metaphors go.
• This book should've been called "Leopard Trap!" That, or "All's Veld That Ends Veld."

Page 123~

"It is the way of Europeans," the house-boy said philosophically.

"You gotta read a lot of Kant to deal with these motherfuckers," he added.

~RP

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Paperback 865: Appointment for Sin / Paul V. Russo (Midwood F217)

Paperback 865: Midwood F217 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Appointment for Sin
Author: Paul V. Russo
Cover artist: Uncredited

Est. value: $22-25

Best things about this cover:

• Suzie Masseuse's gaze is burning a hole in that washcloth.
• "Now that you're naked, just cross your feet like … like so, and now … I strum your ankles. Isn't that nice?"
• I love how Blondewig Amplebosom's like "Well is this a sin appointment or isn't it? Jeez, what's a girl gotta do to get some sin? I made an appointment and everything, and still no sin. Put my ankles down!"
• I love orange, but no. This room color is a no.

Best things about this back cover:

• Terrible tagline—stupid within
• "Editor's note" LOL. It's in typewriter font, so you know it's real.
• Winnie and April will be plenty, thanks.

Page 123~

"Some of the clients are particularly fond of the vibrating mechanism in it."
"Vib—"
Her hand closed his mouth.

~RP

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Paperback 864: A Man Called Spade / Dashiell Hammett (Dell 411)

Paperback 864: Dell 411 (2nd ptg, 1st thus, 1950)

Title: A Man Called Spade
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $30

Best things about this cover:

• Spade's tie is super-excited for battle.
• If you looked in a 1950 encyclopedia under "Private Dick": this picture. Chiseled. Determined. Behatted. Textbook.
• Fear Hand Photobomb!
• The scale / perspective is All wrong on this, but given that awesome green shirt, I'm gonna allow it.
• "She screamed as Spade dashed up the stairs"—get it? "Dashed"? Yeah, you get it.
• I have a friend whose kid is named Dashiell. Art Spiegelman's son is named Dashiell. This concludes the Dashiell-shout-out portion of my the program.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoa. You know, sometimes we forget that 1940s apartments were all long couches and putting greens.
• Max Bliss is the best unintentional porn name I've come across in a Long time.
• I love a pitcher of Bloody Marys as much as anyone, but maybe ease up on the celery there.
• Wow, Max Bliss's daughter is taking that "50 Shades of Grey" thing a bit literally.

'
Page 123~ (from "Too Many Have Lived")

She was short, square, as if carved economically from a cube. 

Talk about economical. That is some haiku-esque objectification right there. Classic.

~RP

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Paperback 863: Father and Son / James T. Farrell (Signet D1066)

Paperback 863: Signet D1066 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Father and Son
Author: James T. Farrell
Cover artist: James Avati

Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• This is as dynamic as Avati gets. This is Avati tripping balls. This is Avati's dark twisted fantasy. This is porno-vati. I mean, that one guy's hand is adjacent to that woman's ass. Ass-adjacent! Call the censors.
• Why would you name your kid "A. Stormy Adolescence?" That's just cruel.
• "Hey, lady. Lady! I come bearing snakes … it's a metaphor."
• All main people in Avati paintings are lit like religious figures. Beatific. Haloed in light.
• I do (sort of!) like the way this pictures is posted and pillared into three parts, a triptych, with the salacious stuff happening on the ends, but our primaries still framed in a place of relative innocence in the center.

Best things about this back cover:

• We get it. One's old, one's young. It's called Father and Son, for god's sake. Move along.
• I really want this to be a 500pp. novel (!) about a guy who stops trying to understand his son and just takes him to a whorehouse.
• Unflinching! This novel will not flinch. Tickle it. Pretend you're going to punch it. You'll see.

Page 123~

Father Michael took a cowbell off the window ledge and marched downstairs to ring it.

Sorry, this is all I can think of right now:


~RP

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