Paperback 119: The Erection Set / Mickey Spillane (Signet Y5120)

Paperback 119: Signet Y5120 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: The Erection Set
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Picasso

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Is that extended leg supposed to simulate an erection or stimulate one? In either case: [shudder]
• If you ever doubted the phallic qualities of a gun, behold this cover. Of course, before this cover, I doubted the phallic qualities of a left leg. This cover's full of learning opportunities.
• Be honest: was there ever a time when that hairdo (bottle blond, unkempt yet sculpted, etc.) was attractive? I was three when this book came out, so I'm not a good judge.
  
• She is aggressively tan
• Remember when women with medium-to-smallish breasts could get shirt-removal work?

Best things about this back cover:

• "Hey, has anyone seen my artificial leg?"
• "Dogeron!!" - setting up the inevitable catchprase: "That doggone Dogeron done gone and done it again!"

Page 123~

My teeth were showing when I said, "You can always change your mind, pal. Like starting right now. I'll take all three of you out and be gone before the noise dies down."

~RP

Paperback 118: The Ravagers / Donald Hamilton (Gold Medal k1452)

Paperback 118: Gold Medal k1452 (PBO, 1964)
Title: The Ravagers
Author: Donald Hamilton
Cover artist: John McDermott (thanks to George Freeman for the artist credit)

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Finally, the untold story of how the Scooby-Doo gang broke up - here, Velma tries to protect and console Daphne while Fred fends off a drug-addled Shaggy, who is despondent and irate about the fact that Fred had Scooby put down.
• The Matt Helm series was very popular, and Dean Martin played Helm on screen. I've never read Hamilton, but I'm starting to think it might be worth the effort. I always associate him with John D. MacDonald, largely because the Travis McGee and Matt Helm series were both published by Gold Medal throughout the 60s.

Best things about this back cover:

• That's the egg-headiest author pic ever.
• Code Name: Eric - exotic!
• "... lying dead in a Canadian motel room" - about the most undignified place you could possibly die. Bad enough to have your face eaten away by acid, but in a Canadian motel? That's just over-the-top.

Page 123~

She smiled up at me approvingly. "What a suspicious tall man it is! Don't worry, darling. We're going to have a swell time together. We'll have a million kicks, a million laughs. Hand me that shirt, will you?"

~RP

Paperback 117: Bodies and Souls / ed. Dann Herr & Joel Wells (Dell 0656)

Paperback 117: Dell 0656 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Bodies and Souls
Editors: Dann Herr & Joel Wells
Cover artist: Teason

Yours for: SOLD 9/18/10


Best things about this cover:

• Finally, a paperback that deals seriously with the lingering problem of the Manichean Heresy.
  
• "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, [Willard / Ben / Templeton / other rat name you can think of]"
• Hmmm ... uh ... I guess this cover's got a rat. And a skull. And a candle. Those elements hold a certain visual interest.
• If you like brown, this is the book for you.
• This book is another good example of why paperback design starts sucking some time around 1960. Art becomes more like stock footage. Text starts dominating the cover in un-thought out and ugly ways. Quit shilling for the "Doubleday Crime Club" and give me the beautiful cover art I deserve! 50 cents for a paperback?! What am I, a Rockefeller?

Best things about this back cover:

• When I want an authoritative literary opinion, I always turn to [squints to read fine print] the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer!
• This reviewer is sadly and humorously unaware that "catholic" in fact means "universal." I know the reviewer meant "Catholic" in religious terms ... but precision of word choice matters, even if you do only work for the Columbus Daily Muffin.

Page 123~

from "The Finger of Stone" by G.K. Chesterton

"Have you heard the news I say," rapped out the doctor. "Boyg is dead."

Gale stopped in a sentence about Gothic architecture, and said seriously, with a sort of hazy reverence:

"Requiescat in pace. Who was Boyg?"

~RP

Paperback 116: The Dain Curse / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 295)

Paperback 116: Pocket Books 295 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: The Dain Curse
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: sadly, uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "Demons, I cast thee out!"
• Where did her pupils go?
• This is the rare "beheading" cover (I'm kidding - though her head does look like it was photo-shopped, badly, onto her torso)
• I think her head has snapped back in revulsion from her assailant's fetid odor. That may explain the disappearing pupils as well.
• I do like how he knocks her head so hard it goes out of frame.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... and you're cursed with your mother's blood on your hands in babyhood" - aside from being enigmatic and disturbing ... "Babyhood?" Is that a word? Sounds like a good title for a talking babies movie starring at least one of the Wayans Brothers and, oh, let's say Ice Cube. It'll be like "Baby Geniuses," only ... blacker.
• This may be the first book I've posted to feature the wartime exhortation to the reader to mail the book to a serviceman overseas. Very cool historical marking.

Page 123~

It was postmarked San Francisco, nine o'clock Saturday morning. Inside was a soiled and crookedly torn piece of brown wrapping paper, with one sentence - as poorly printed with pencil as the address - on it: "Any body that wants Mrs. Carter can have same by paying $10000-----" There was no date, no salutation, no signature.

~RP

Paperback 115: 'K' / Leslie Waller (Gold Medal k1319)

Paperback 115: Gold Medal k1319 (PBO, 1963)
Title: 'K'
Author: Leslie Waller
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• The "K", obviously - my favorite letter of the alphabet, by far.
  
• Easily the shortest title in my collection
• They've made Khrushchev look gregarious, drunk, lecherous, all at once. It's a nasty combo.
  
• I do not believe anyone would get up from a chair and leave it in exactly that condition
• The rifle appears to be floating. At that angle it couldn't possibly be propped up by the chair arm.
• Is that "K" supposed to look ... Sovietish? It's certainly Red.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Yes, hello! It's me, Nikita! I am watching you, you naughty minx..."
• In case you forgot that Khrushchev is communist, they have made him red to remind you.
• There's a fine art to near-murder now?
• Are those circles supposed to be bullet holes? Views through a rifle scope? Pips on a defective domino?

Page 123~

Lying at his feet, Ryder saw one meaty finger whiten at the knuckle as Ponamarenko started to squeeze the trigger.

I think that sentence opens with a misplaced modifier. Sounds like Ryder is lying at some other guy's feet, when I think the meaty finger is actually lying at Ryder's feet. These are the kinds of things I spend my life obsessing over. It's sad, really.

~RP

Paperback 114: The Case of the Cautious Coquette / Erle Stanley Gardner (Cardinal C-332)

Paperback 114: Cardinal C-332 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Case of the Cautious Coquette
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: John Fernie

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Georgia's audition for the "New Avengers" ended very, very badly.
• I'm no fashion expert, but I'm pretty sure a pink cape does not go with a strapless orange jumpsuit. Not that I don't admire her courage.

Q: What is she doing with her left arm?

• a. trying to clear the frog from her throat
• b. doing the first part of a Sammy Sosa-style salute to her fans (peace sign to follow)
• c. wiping blood from her chin
• d. preparing to throw an elbow at the small man standing behind her whom we cannot see
• e. doing her post-murder celebration dance

Best things about this back cover:

• First paragraph = How to cop a feel, Perry Mason-style! "I'm looking for a gun!" Man, I gotta use that one.
• After so much exposure to it, I now feel that Erle Stanley Gardner's signature is trying to send me some kind of secret message...
• Check out the ad for another book - exploitation of the advertising potential of the back cover is a late development, and would be unwelcome if it didn't give me a great window on the literary context of the time. Plus ... miniature cheese/beefcake!

Page 123~

"But all this isn't going to do you any good," Drake said irritably. "You're simply crucifying yourself. Figure what the papers will do when they - why, hang it, Perry, it will put your neck right in a noose. Evidence of flight is evidence of guilt."

~RP

Paperback 113: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife / Erle Stanley Gardner (Cardinal C-283)

Paperback 113: Cardinal C-283 (3rd ptg, 1958)

Title: The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Truly incredible design. Most of these Cardinal reprints are dreadfully boring, but this one is gorgeous - subtle, yet eye-grabbing. I swear to you that until this very second, when I scanned the cover (and thus blew it up to an abnormally large size), I did not notice the silhouette of the man in the fedora inside those slashing black lines. Very nice effect.
• "Half-Wakened Wife" really really wants to be "Half-Naked Wife" every time I look at it.
• I know that when *I* am half-wakened, I can't help but reach blindly for my revolver. It's just normal human instinct.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Chiseler" is one of the all-time great words in the crime lexicon.
• "This is a Genuine Cardinal Edition" - I'm trying to imagine all the bootleg and rip-off versions out there: Oriole? Cardinale? Sorny?
• Gardner's signature remains certifiably insane.

Page 123~

Ellen Cushing once more raised her voice. "I guess you've got to come out, Mother."

~RP