Paperback 1040: Inflamed Trio / Charles Fay (Emerald Reader 107)

Paperback 1040: Emerald Reader 107 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Inflamed Trio
Author: Charles Fay
Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 8/10 (unread, square, bright, but some scuffing, and w/ pub. page torn out??)
Estimated value: $15-20

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• It's hard to find a good nostril model.
• Nude Model Museum Rugby is a rough sport. This player has clearly hurt her knee and will have to come out.
• Is it really a good idea to lean against the painting like that? After all, that's an original [squints] Rubano?
• Wow, those are ... some words.
• Don't discriminate against backs. Be a friend to backs. Be a back ally.
• What the hell is "Sinports" even a pun on?? Car ports? Imports? Sun porch?
• They've playfully covered up the "Inflamed Trio," i.e. her nipples and the patch of eczema above her right elbow.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Which do you think would look better on my business card: 'Artist in Sin' or 'Sin Artist By Choice'? Oh never mind, I'll ask my mom. Hey, MOM! ..."
• Honestly, I've seen scores of these tag line / ellipsis / nonsense cover copy / ellipsis / tag line back covers—they are a staple of '60s sex fiction back covers—but this one is the first to exhaust me. It's like being bludgeoned with nonsensically bad grammar. Good luck making it all the way to the IGNITED CARNALITY
• "As a simile from another story herein" ... if you have any idea what this sentence means, let me know. It's as confusing as a simile.
• LOL "trio"—did they just scare-quote the book's own title. That's pretty meta.

Page 123~

A few well dressed agents with bulging client books and nervous, hopeful clinets at their sides, glanced at Ronald with interest.

I know it looks like I've made some typing errors in transcribing that quotation, but I assure you I have not. Not a one. I'm imagining "clinets" as a kind of medium-sized, reclusive panda-cat. It's too bad only one clinet can get the part. Good luck, clinets! I hope you land that well [space] dressed agent!

~RP

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P.S. there are typos on like every page of this book. Also, the font, my god:

"traffice?" that's onsense!

Paperback 1039: The Bridge Over the River Kwai / Pierre Boulle (Bantam HP4391)

Paperback 1039: Bantam HP4391 (35th ptg, 1970)

Title: The Bridge Over the River Kwai
Author: Pierre Boulle
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $5

Best things about this cover:

• My wife actually spotted this one on the $1 cart outside the bookstore. My initial immediate response was "meh" but then I held it and noticed a. the condition (excellent) and b. the quality of the art, which really is exquisite. 
• I love how Bantam has let the cover breathe. You can see how they might've used the painting differently, maybe cropping it differently and putting text (title / author) in or on top of the red sky. But this way, the painting really feels like a painting, and that sky is allowed to take up space and create its mood. The composition is also arresting.
• Me: "I know this artist ... Kalin? ... Hooks? ... [looks very closely at painting] oh, man, it's Barye Phillips!" Phillips signs simply "Barye," which you can see just to the left (your left) of the Japanese soldier's hand. I'm used to seeing girl art / crime fiction scenes from him, so this was cool and unexpected. 

Best things about this back cover:

• Again: rooooom for my eyes to breeeeeathe. I like.
• No need to waste time (i.e. words) when dealing with a book this well known (from the 1957 movie). Both front and back covers really do go in for more of a museum treatment than a typical book promo treatment.

Page 123~

Never before had he been conscious of that feeling of power and conquest which absolute isolation affords, whether on a mountaintop or in the bowels of the earth.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 1038: The Fugitive Eye / Charlotte Jay (Avon 670)

Paperback 1038: Avon 670 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Fugitive Eye
Author: Charlotte Jay
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $5-7

Best things about this cover:

• "Uh, hey ... I was just ... she was ... I ... just clearing some brush, you know ... at night, in my suit ... it's totally normal, everything's normal"
• Is that her dress, or did she die inside a giant salmon?
• Talk about a fugitive eye. I'm over here, buddy!
• Fear Hand (male edition)

Best things about this back cover:

• "How do we convey the sheer terror!?" "Maybe write it on a slant?" "OMG THAT IS TERRIFYING!"
• "Don't start this..." LOL, OK!
• I'm mad at "Invariably"; yeah, you heard me, Cincinnati Times-Star
• "MISS"—we got ourselves an unmarried Aussie authoress, boys!
• "Beat Not the Bones" never doesn't make me laugh

Page 123~

But as he looked around his gaze met no human face.

There was this one raccoon face, but raccoons probably couldn't testify in court, thought Steve

~RP

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Paperback 1037: Send Another Hearse / Harold Q. Masur (Dell 7737)

Paperback 1037: Dell 7737 (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: Send Another Hearse
Author: Harold Q. Masur
Cover artist: Greene (so he's just Greene, now? like Prince?) (see artist credit on back)

Condition: 10/10
Estimated value: $12
Best things about this cover:

• "I have other creative talents," whispered the brunette. Throatily, she added, "I hang wallpaper."
• I love Scott Jordan's expression. "Just gonna light this cigarette and settle in to watch this wallpaper-hanger lady take her clothes off and ... [ding dong] ... what the!? Goddammit, why did I even bother getting a No Solicitors sign if no one's gonna ****ing RESPECT it!?"
• I also love how jaded the title is. "Yep ... yeah ... I don't know, someone else died, I guess ... no we can't put 'em in the same hearse, you moron. SEND ANOTHER HEARSE!"

Best things about this back cover:

• That is not a martini glass. That is the Holy Grail.
• "Scott"? Come on. P.I.s go by last names. You switch to "Jordan" eventually, so your dumb first-name gambit actually makes everything weirdly unclear. Nevermind that both "Scott" and "Jordan" can be both first and last names. It's a mess. Just stick with last names, and you're good, man.
• What kind of chump just *opens* the hotel room door? No "Who is it?" or anything?

Page 123~

And, quite irrelevantly, I thought how various parts of the human anatomy behave differently under stress.

I think he's saying his penis is irrelevant, but who can be sure?

~RP

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Paperback 1036: Circle of Sin / Leslie Behan (Domino 84-700)

Paperback 1036: Domino Books 84-700 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Circle of Sin
Author: Leslie Behan
Cover artist: Photo cover

Condition: 7/10 (tight and square, but w/ water stains on edges)
Estimated value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• No single word is going to derail your Sexy Train faster or more efficiently than "groping."
• Jeez, male gaze much?
• "Now why don't you sit up here on my desk?" "Wh-?" "Shhh. It's standard practice." "Uh, OK, I guess. But who's that?" "Him? Oh, that's just Steve. Ignore him." "Uh..." "Good, now whatever you do, do Not look at the lamp." "Bu-" "AVERT YOUR EYES!"
• The psychologist's suit is legit hot.

Best things about this back cover:

• Groups gone WILD {CRACK!}
• "Revolved achingly" = me trying to dine at one of them revolving restaurants, no sir, I'll take my food
• stationary, as god intended, thank you very much
• I love how this goes from dumb-ass sex fiction to super dumb-ass Agatha Christie mystery on a dime! Wait, we got a body!? I'm in.

Page 123~

"You met a girl?" Durango looked at him closely. Somehow he found himself believing the answer. "Where? What girl?"
"I picked her up on Broadway. She was standing in a doorway. A hooker. I went up to her place with her."

This novel has to be sexier than this dude Forrest Gumping his way through Sex Town. Hang on ... OK here we go:

Her hands moved downward, over the tiny waist to the flat belly. She massaged the belly for a long time, moving farther downward slowly to the trembling mound beneath it. And then her fingers were nearing their target, the tips becoming slippery with the dew of passion they found there. They caught the tiny polyp of flesh awaiting them and stroking it.

I can't stop laughing at that last "sentence." As with the cover copy, this writer really, really knows how to ruin whatever meager sex vibe he's able to get going. I mean, "polyp"? That's something you discover during a colonoscopy, why would you use it to describe the clitoris, dear lord? Am I really supposed to believe a woman wrote this? "Leslie" ... OK, Leslie, aside from possibly a fake name, could also be a dude's name. All I know is a guy wrote this. A guy whose grasp of grammar, like his grasp of sexiness, is not very, uh firm. ("... and stroking it"?)

~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]

Paperback 1034: The Professor and the Co-Ed / Babette Hall (Belmont B50-786)

Paperback 1034: Belmont B50-786 (unknown ptg, 1967)

Title: The Profesor and the Co-Ed
Author: Babette Hall
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10

Best things about this cover:

• The Advanced Hugging seminar was beginning to take its toll on Steve's knees...
• "Oh Steve, I want ... I want ... something for these bare walls. A kitten poster, maybe? Oh, I wish I lived in a different dorm. Babette Hall is so drab!"
• I like how this cover subverts expectations by placing a generic dude's back where the Great Girl Art should be.
• I apparently own multiple editions of this book.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Don't look so frightened!" he shouted, terrifyingly
• "A child of sixteen?" I did not know they made "Co-Eds" that young.
• "The teacher in me" 1000x LOL that's what she said
• What is "the world's oldest predicament"? Prostitution? Pregnancy? Gym class?
• Ladies Home Journal with the fake blurb! "Could you give us a blurb?" "Uh ... would you accept an aphorism?"

Page 123~

At seventeen sixteen was a million miles away. Why, I could hardly remember it, principally because I didn't especially want to.

I gotta borrow this one. "You ate the last donut." "Did I? ... I don't remember?" "It was 10 minutes ago." "10 minutes ... it's like a million miles." "There's still powder on your face. And on your hands. Look at your hands." "I don't especially want to."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]