Paperback 647: Bats Fly at Dusk / A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner) (Dell 0476)

Paperback 647: Dell 0476 (1st New Dell ed., 1963)

Title: Bats Fly at Dusk
Author: A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Ron Lesser

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Just woke up, or the latest style? Who can say?
• Bats Fly at Dusk ... Ladies Strip at Dawn.
• This cover has neither enough skin nor enough context to be interesting. 
• I know this will sound heretical, but I think the dress would be sexier *on* her.
• This book is close to immaculate. I just found a box full of (primarily) Gardner/Fair stuff. A reader graciously shipped it to me a while back, and I looked at its treasure, then set it aside, and forgot about it. So it's vintage paperback Christmas all over again.

Best things about this back cover:

• Is she standing in front of the silhouette of  ... a badge? A vase? A strawberry?
• I like how he's not sure about the age, but he's got the pounds down to a very precise number.
• Every time I pick up a Cool/Lam book, I say to myself, "Man, I really gotta read some of these again." And then other books intervene.

Page 123~

"I told Miss Jackson that if she wanted to stay on in the place alone the raise in rent wouldn't be effective. Miss Jackson really seems like a nice sort, exactly the type I like for tenants."

I'm a little worried for Miss Jackson.

~RP

Paperback 646: People vs. Withers & Malone / Stuart Palmer & Craig Rice (Award Books A146F)

Paperback 646: Award Books A146F (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: People vs. Withers & Malone
Author: Craig Rice & Stuart Palmer
Cover artist: Uncredited / Clip art?

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer document their early experiments with sexual role-playing games. "Wait, I forget, am I 'Withers' or 'Malone' in this scenario?" Speaking of role-playing, "Craig Rice" is male-sounding pseudonym for female author Georgiana Ann Craig. I own a nice copy of a book she ghost-wrote for actor George Sanders. (Here's a nice write-up about Rice at "Pulp Serenade")
• Or maybe the parrot is 'Withers' and the cougar is 'Malone', in which case I am hoping for a break-out and then serious carnage. Malone can do the killing, while Withers provides narration. "[Squawk!], he's got your eyeball! Got your eyeball! [Squawk!]"
• I hope the artist got paid the $0.75 he was owed for this "painting."
• I keep looking at this book and seeing "An Insane Rectum Mystery."

Best things about this back cover:

• God, paperback book design just went to $^#%ing hell in the mid-'60s. Not in all instances, but in many. See virtually every Travis McGee novel. So much potential, so much ugh.
• I love that Artzybasheff is someone's name. Some *artist's* name.
• I love that "Ellery Queen" (itself a pseudonym) refers to the mid-'60s as "these unfunny days." I can only guess what he means, but I love an author who believes his own time has gone to hell. Also, from a crime novel / crime movie perspective, the mid-60s were (with some very notable exceptions [cough] Parker [cough]) pretty dire.

Page 123~

"Blue sea!" cried Malone. "I told her her eyes were as blue as the sea! That was Luke Swenson's sister, Little Helga, a queen-size Viking goddess! I am in love with her, practically!"

"Practically!" So few people exclaim their hedge words! Nice.

~RP

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Paperback 645: Tarzan of the Apes / Edgar Rice Burroughs (Ballantine Books U2001)

Paperback 645: Ballantine U2001 (3rd ptg / 1st thus, 1966)

Title: Tarzan of the Apes
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Ron Ely ponders the bright vista of his career. 
• Ron Ely feels very good about Ron Ely's tree-climbing abilities. Ron Ely starting to believe this Tarzan thing may work out after all. Ron Ely is going to rub it in mom's face first chance he gets.
• Seriously, something is not right up in Ron Ely's brain.
• If this is Ron Ely's most Tarzanesque pose ... I mean, to whom are they selling this book? You could retitle this "Summer in the Woods" or "My First Time" or "Beefcake Palace" and you wouldn't have to change the picture one bit.
• Ron Ely is quite satisfied with Ron Ely's body. Ron Ely's workouts really paid off.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Uncut"—Yes, that could also be the title of a book with this cover.
• "Color television show"!? Wow. I think they prefer to be called "television shows of color." The '60s were so racist.

Page 123~

"Look at dem low down white trash out dere!" she shrilled, pointing toward the Arrow. "They-all's a desecratin' us, right yere on dis yere perverted islan'."

I think "Tarzan" actually came on right before "Dis Yere Perverted Islan'" ("... with Gilligan ... the Skipper too ...")

~RP

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Paperback 644: The Talking Clock / Frank Gruber (Penguin 545)

Paperback 644: Penguin 545 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Talking Clock
Author: Frank Gruber
Cover artist: H. Lawrence Hoffman

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• Very early Penguin. More woodcut than painting. Not terribly exciting, but interesting as a historical curiosity. 
• That's a 'stache variety you rarely see anymore. I'm gonna call it the "Germanic shopkeep."
• This book is really well made. Spine lean and reading crease, but tight as hell, with perfectly even (and white pages). I think production quality might've dipped in future years.
• According to interior inscription, this book was once owned by Laura Burns of 14642 Bringard Drive, Somewhere, U.S.A.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Blurb, schmurb—buy some more of our damned books!"

Page 123~

"Hello, Madigan," he said. "I see the punk's talked to you."
Punk?" exclaimed Johnny. "Why the Lieutenant and I are practically pals. I help him solve his case. The tough ones."
Lieutenant Madigan grunted. "You know what happened in Hillcrest? And you, Mrs. Quisenberry?"
Bonita Quisenberry's face was like old ivory, yellow and hard.

I don't know what's happening here, but I do know this book has a woman named Bonita Quisenberry in it, which is more than enough for me. If I ever met a woman named Bonita Quisenberry, I would immediately ask her to run away with me. Or bake me a pie.

~RP

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Paperback 643: The General Zapped an Angel / Howard Fast (Ace 27910)

Paperback 643: Ace 27910 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: The General Zapped an Angel
Author: Howard Fast
Cover artist: Karel Thole

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "They call this 'Blood Lake'. I forget why."
• That looks way worse than "zapped."
•  I have no idea why I bought this, except perhaps the kooky title, the fact that I recognized Fast's name from earlier work, and some vague idea that later in life I would turn my attention to cover art of the '70s...

Best things about this back cover:

• Text. Text text text. Text. Louis Untermeyer. Text.
• Mother Earth!? So *that's* what She looks like. Again, I'm gonna say the situation on the cover looks *way* worse than mere "wounding."
• I buy that he was "bestselling," but "world-famous?" Maybe this back cover blurb is its own science-fictional alternate universe-type story...

Page 123~

"Vacation?"
"No, no indeed. You know, I thought I would do one of those Jewish comic-tragic things about a Miami Beach hotel. You know the kind of thing, mostly schmaltz and bad jokes and maybe two percent validity so your audience will shed a tear or two if they're in the right mood."

"Oh, one of *those* things," he nodded politely while smiling and backing away.

~RP

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Paperback 642: Experiment Perilous / Margaret Carpenter (Pocket Books 278)

Paperback 642: Pocket Books 278 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: Experiment Perilous
Author: Margaret Carpenter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "No. No, I don't approve of these young people at all. Decidedly not."
• Seriously, this is one of the greatest photobombs of all time.
• Experiment Perilous. Old Man Angry. Noun Adjective! Grrrr.

Best things about this back cover:

• 4 cents!? It used to be 3!? I blame Obama.
• Be sure to send the book to a boy, because of course girls can't read so what're they gonna do with it, origami?
• Publishers still working out the kinks in their blurb presentation strategy. "How 'bout one big undifferentiated mass of quotes?" "Sounds good. Run with it!"

Page 123~

She cried as if her heart would break this afternoon, and confessed to me the most extraordinary thing: she is being followed by a man she has never seen before. This has been going on for three months, she said. Nick pooh-poohs the whole thing, and says every pretty girl learns how to manage that sort of thing in her teens. 

"I've stalked pretty girls my whole life," Nick added, "so believe me, I know."

~RP

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Paperback 641: The Blue Kimono Kill / Walt Sheldon (Gold Medal k1546)

Paperback 641: Gold Medal k1546 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Blue Kimono Kill
Author: Walt Sheldon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best thing about this cover:

• "Honey, we need to talk. Don't be made but ... it's about your lipstick."
• Mmm, chick-flavored.
• And the winner of this cover is: The Lantern.

Best things about this back cover:

• God save me from a text-only back cover, ugh.
• "But Marlin's academic career didn't last long. For, you see, Marlin was a fish."
• Adjective of the Day: "Zen-spouting."

Page 123~

"You strike me as a man who could be brave, Marlin, in, let us say, the face of crude torture."

"Let us not say, and then say that we did," countered Marlin.

~RP

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