Paperback 952: The American Gun Mystery / Ellery Queen (Avon 523)

Paperback 952: Avon 523 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The American Gun Mystery
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• So much emotion and drama in this one little tableau. It's really quite beautiful, even though I have no idea why a gorgeous blonde in an evening gown and opera gloves would be at the rodeo.
• It's lit like a religious painting. Caravaggio or Rubens or someone. She's bathed in light, praying, pleading ... I mean, this is probably some generic shlock, but the cover makes it look complex and compelling.
• Also ... sweet chaps.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is far less compelling. What is the shape of those blocks supposed to represent? I see the belt and gun and lock, but the puzzle(ish) pieces ... aren't convincing. As puzzle pieces. I'm no jigsaw aficionado, but that top piece, for instance, seems impossible.
• I don't like being invited to "solve" the puzzle, and I've never ever read a mystery with the idea that I was supposed to solve it. I realize that makes me slightly weird, as "mystery" fans / collectors go.
• "Deadly Puzzle" is still bothering me. Who associates rodeo with jigsaw puzzles? What's more, in what universe is a jigsaw puzzle scary? Ooooh, deadly puzzle! I'm shaking.

Page 123~

He gulped down two raw eggs, a steaming pannikin of coffee, an excited regurgitation of the preceding evening's events issuing from Djuna's chattering mouth, and then dashed downtown to Times Square.

PANNIKIN SKYWALKER is my new user name.

~RP

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Paperback 951: Skin and Bones / Thorne Smith (Pocket Books 490)

Paperback 951: Pocket Books 490 (3rd ptg, 1948)

Title: Skin and Bones
Author: Thorne Smith
Cover artist (and illus.): [Herbert Roese]

Estimated value: $not a lot
Condition: 3/10

Best things about this cover:

• Dang. I'm sure there's an innocent enough explanation for whatever is happening here, but for a late '40s cover, this is pretty ... saucy. It's like she's looking over her shoulder going, "Well, get on with it, then..." and he's trying to figure out how one removes these bloody stocking contraptions.
• I love that when I was tagging this post, the category of "all fours" already existed.
• Thorne Smith was a very big deal in the mid-century "humor" game.

Best things about this back cover:

• Frankly, this sounds amazing.
• "Hoarse, gamy laughter" is what I just emitted upon reading that phrase.
• I never noticed that the kangaroo, in this incarnation of the Pocket Books logo, kinda looks like he (!?) has a giant book erection.

Page 123~

"Sure," said the drunken mortician, growing a little tired of the Rev. Watts.

~RP

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Paperback 950: The Screaming Cargo / J.M. Flynn // The Bullet-Proof Martyr / James A. Howard (Ace Double F-130)

Paperback 950 (!): Ace Double F-130 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Screaming Cargo / The Bullet-Proof Martyr
Author: J.M. Flynn / James A. Howard
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Estimated value: $10
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• Screaming babies in the cargo hold? Jeez. Grim.
• Love the Telly Savalas-esque skyward-looking guy. "Who loves you, screaming babies?"
• Cool font. Cool tie. Weird lambada-on-the-tarmac.

Best things about this other cover:

• This looks like someone's intense hate-drawing diary. Ugly, dumb, red.
• Why is the eye candy so tiny? The visual equivalent of burying the lede.
• Her left arm is the dumbest thing I've seen in 950 paperbacks worth of posing. "How's that, baby? You like it when mama puts just one arm in her jacket? Yeah, you like it." What the hell?

Page 23~  (there are no p. 123s) (from The Screaming Cargo)

She was more girl than woman. She wore her hair in a pony tail—soft dark hair. She wore a too-tight blouse and short shorts, and she had a face that might've been innocent a few weeks earlier.

A few weeks earlier ... you know, before she took up knitting. Nobody comes back from that, man. Nobody.

~RP

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Paperback 949: Play the Sin Field / Drew Deskins (Spartan Line SL134)

Paperback 949: Spartan Line SL134 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Play the Sin Field
Author: Drew Deskins
Cover artist: presumably

Estimated value: No idea. Somehow, I have TWO copies of this, and yet there are NO copies at abebooks. :(
Condition: 8/10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap, I only *just* realized that this is supposed to be a pun on the phrase, "play the infield." Before, I thought a. wow, they just threw the word SIN in to a perfectly good phrase and ruined it, how stupid, and b. wow, SIN is a really truly terrible pun for "out."
• I love this woman. We should all be this confident. (i.e. confident enough to wear pasties that clash with our evening gloves).
• Wanton nymphos are the best kind of nymphos. Them prim nymphos ain't no fun at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the Insane Phrase Bookend blurb. I should create a tag for these things. They are a truly great part of American literary history. I assure you Hemingway could never have come up with "SIN GUESTS"; not in his whole, adulturous life.
• P.S. "orgiastically"

Page 123~

"I want you to lay me right here and now," she said softly and he fell on her, his malehood jutting and pulsating, as he inched it within her eager body.

You'd think you'd be laughing too hard to properly masturbate to this stuff.

~RP

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Paperback 948: Sin-Drome / Arthur A. Howe (Vega V-46)

Paperback 948: Vega Books V-46 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Sin-Drome
Author: Arthur A. Howe
Cover artist: that guy who did so many Vega / Fabian / Saber Books covers...

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Estimated value: $15-20
Condition: 6/10

Best things about this cover:

• More awkward couch-posing. Great.
• More awkward "Sin"-punning. Great.
• Is "Dyserotic" a word?
• Ew, his right hand. Imagine that touching you. Ew.
• Suburban Insurance Salesman Vampires prefer the upper boob.
• LOL at the discreetly bolded "other"

Best things about this back cover:

• "The gun was the weapon which decided the balance of power in this situation." So sayeth SleazeNovelBot 5000.
• Man, this is the worst. It's like every sub-"Walker Texas Ranger" crime show where the killer / bad guy decides to delay and orate just long enough for the hero to come along with a roundhouse.
• I gotta say, the sexual sadism of the last part is kind of a new twist, though.
• Speaking of sadism, I shudder to think what previous owners have done to this book. Are those cigarette burns?

Page 123~

"Oh God! He's dangerous, Juelle. If he catches on there's no telling what he'll do."

Don't be cruelle, Juelle, you fooelle.

~RP

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Paperback 947: I Search For Sin-sation / Alvin Browne (Regal Novel 1138)

Paperback 947: Regal Novel 1138 (PBO, 1967)

Title: I Search For Sin-sation
Author: Alvin Browne
Cover artist: Uncredited, unheralded, unloved

Estimated value: $No Idea (lots)
Condition: 8/10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I haven't stopped laughing since I realized (about 30 seconds ago) that the title is "I Search for Sinsation" and not, as I genuinely thought it was, "I Search for Sin Station"—"Siri, where the fuck is Sin Station? I've been driving around this shitty neighborhood for hours! I'm going to miss my train! Reroute!"
• What kind of giant leaf-based contraption is she wearing around her shoulders!?
• What kind of shitty, wrinkled, ragged, no-backed couch is that?
• She is moments from toppling over—mid leg-cross, her left (fear!) hand hoping to find leverage and support on non-existent couch arm.
• Those shoes make no sense with that ensemble, and yet they are the least stupid thing on this cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, this rhetorical style (INSANE PHRASE ... gibberish ... INSANE PHRASE) is typical of many many sleaze paperback back covers of '60s.
• I love the legalistic tone here. "Whereas the full bodied girl heretofore mentioned is in her rights pertaining to the first part of the second sex clause..."
• "Bed-boredom!"
• Let's get Physical (answer)!

Page 123~

Her breasts were basketballs hanging almost to her navel.

OK, I cheated, that's p. 122. But it begged to be quoted. Here's p. 123:

She would have sworm (sic!) there'd been straps on her now naked shoulders when they'd sat down. Her partner was bent down over her breasts. She dismissed her suspicions. No one could be that openly trampish.

There really aren't enough (sic!)s in the world. That typo ... it's not an outlier. Here's something from the opening (teaser) page of this novel:

He kissed her and cupped a breast in his hand she felt a quiver race through her. (sigh, sic)
"It's time we ment to bed," he said huskily. (Sickety sic)
She felt desire mounting within her loins.

And So Forth.

~RP

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Paperback 946: The Book of Paradox / Louise Cooper (Dell 3343)

Paperback 946: Dell 3343 (1st ptg, 1975)

Title: The Book of Paradox
Author: Louise Cooper
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-12

[Latest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The Oracle foretold the coming of the one they call ... Glutemaster!
• Man vs. Angel in the World Pose-Off of Love
• No one did Subterranean Mystical Catacomb Beefcake like Frazetta.

Best things about this back cover:

• "and now" is the biggest LOL line on this whole cover
• LORD OF THE RINGS (... which is absolutely *nothing* like) LORD OF THE FLIES ... and now! ... LORD OF THE DANCE! Nope, sorry, misspoke. It's BOOK OF PARADOX! Feel the fantasy!
• That's an astonishing array of words considering none of it means anything.

Page 123~

Varka shrugged. "Make of it what you will—but I am going to Limbo."

I believe this is the fantasy paperback equivalent of "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

~RP

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