Paperbacks 1115 & 1116: The Ivory Grin & The Way Some People Die (Bantam 10979 & 10987)

Paperbacks 1115 & 1116: Bantam 10979 & 10987) (6th ptg, 1977 / 8th ptg, 1977)

Titles: The Ivory Grin & The Way Some People Die

Author: Ross Macdonald

Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Condition: 8/10 & 8/10

Value: $5-10 each

Best things about this cover: 

• I said last time that I had one more of these late'70s Archer covers by Mitchell Hooks, but it seems I lied: I had two, bringing my total to five. I guess I collect these now? Subcollection! Just what I need...
• Well yeah, sure, grins don't get much more ivory than that. 
• The dude loading the gun looks like a very disappointed middle manager. "We didn't make our quota this quarter, team. I told you there'd be consequences..."
• I'm super into that cat burglar guy but he's about a centimeter in height, and it's hard to truly love a design element that small. 
• The tealish hue coating every element of this painting is kinda sickly, but somehow when set against the equally sickly pale yellow background, it ends up ... perfect?

Best things about this 2nd cover: 

• Maybe my least favorite of these Archer covers so far. Still good, but the people look like they're carved out of wood. Looks a little sloppy, a little lifeless. But the neon signs and palm trees and dead guy are ... mwah!
• Her hair is insane. I can only hope that it's a wig. Her posture and expression are priceless, though: "Sigh, bikinis are so tiresome ... when do we drink?"
• Does the dead guy have a toupee that's come loose, or did he flatten a small bird with his head when he fell?

No point doing back covers, since they're just that same shadowy photo of Macdonald from the last book. So on to ...

Page 123~ (from The Way Some People Die)

    "The dirty bastard picked up and left me," she said in a deep harsh voice. Her eyes were round with anger, or surprise at her own language. "Good heavens," she said in her normal voice, "I never swear, honestly."

    "Swear some more. It will probably do you good."

~RP

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Paperback 889: Teen-Age Stray / Arthur Adlon (Beacon B752X)

Paperback 889: Beacon Signal B752X (PBO, 1964)

Title: Teen-Age Stray
Author: Arthur Adlon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• "She was down to pennies, tears and her bikini…" Is that zeugma? I've been waiting to see zeugma again since I first learned what it was 25 years ago, in my Brit Lit II class, where we were reading Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock." And here we are. Zeugma!
• This whole concept is not "erotic" to me. It's depressing. Except the triumphant, happy ending where she joins the erotic world of lesbianism. I approve of that.
• … and her calves never got sunburned again.

Best things about this back cover:

• Texty!
• Rex. That's a great name! Terridy, however … that's not even a plausible name, let alone a good one.
• "...a meal, a buck, and a bed…" It honestly didn't occur to me at first that "buck" might simply refer to money.

Page 123~

"Then talk, Rex. I like you better when you talk. You warm me."

~RP

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Paperback 852: The Astronaut / Hank Searls (Pocket Books 6093)

Paperback 852: Pocket Books 6093 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Astronaut
Author: Hank Searls
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $5-10

Donation to the collection from The Second Reader Bookshop (Buffalo, NY)


Best things about this cover:

• It's the touching story of a lonely Stormtrooper and his inflatable girlfriend…
• If you're gonna fall to your death, may as well go out ogling bikini-clad blondes.
• This must be just before he captures her and puts her in a bottle and makes her wear pajamas all day long.
• The design here is actually spectacular. It's got that wackadoodle '60s vibe. Nice incorporation of the letter "O" into the spacesuit design. Stars in her eyes are a little cheesy / spot-on, but her little green bikini makes a nice visual impact, and the overall sun-drenchedness of the thing is a nice counterbalance to my mostly Dark cover collection.

Best things about this back cover:

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Literally.
• "You down with M.P.P.?" ("M.S. Ph.D.!")
• Whoa, "hanky-panky at the motel"!? Tell me more. Seriously, if it happens at motels, I need to know.
• Project Head? Really? No one batted an eyelash at that? OK, then, '60s, carry on …

Page 123~

Straight in front of him were the retro-rocket controls, welded immovably in place so that the chimp could not override ground control.

Chimps? It's got chimps? Talk about burying the lede…

~RP

P.S. Many thanks to John from The Second Reader Bookshop in Buffalo, NY, who reads my crossword blog and responded to my fund-raising drive there with a donation of books for here. Two more coming later this week.

P.P.S. John also sent me this postcard, which … well, if you all won't appreciate it, I don't know who will:

[Miss Lube Rack]

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Paperback 754: Passionate Trio / John Davidson (Epic Book 120)

Paperback 754: Epic Book Original No. 120 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Passionate Trio
Author: John Davidson
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: Not for Sale (part of the Doug Peterson Collection)


Best things about this cover:

• I can't believe this cover photo *ever* read as salacious. It could easily be the cover of a modern girl group's album Right Now. Adorable.
• "Half-female" raises the important question WHAT IS THE OTHER HALF!? IS IT RANCH DRESSING!?
• Seriously, this photo looks like it was taken yesterday. Fantastic swimsuits! This may be the only cover where my reasons for wanting to see more of the women's bodies are almost purely fashion-related.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wild Font! Love it.
• Wow, the tonal gulf between cover photo and cover copy just gets deeper and wider…
• "Bill Hayward" made me laugh out loud. "Here is the story of something racy … Here is the story of something salacious … Here is the story of some random guy's name."
• Next time I feel caught in the insane whirl of my existence, and people ask me how I'm feeling, I'll be like "not gonna lie, kinda Bill Hayward today."
• READ THIS STORY, NOW! = my kind of advertising come-on. No beating around the bush. JUST BUY IT, MOTHERFUCKER!

Page 123~

Even from where he stood he could see that she was drunk.

"Why aren't you at work?"

"Too drunk," she replied. "Aha," he exclaimed. "Just as I thought."

~RP

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Paperback 733: Waterfront Blonde / Gordon Semple (Beacon B352)

Paperback 733: Beacon B352 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Waterfront Blonde
Author: Gordon Semple
Cover artist: Fracé (!?) (see signature just left of Beacon icon)

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• She was everything shirtless Carrot Top wanted … the body of a goddess, the eyes of an old-school extra-terrestrial, the smoking habit of a young Selma Diamond …
• I thought the "Bawd" was the go-between / pimp. Yes, "a woman in charge of a brothel." So she's … half in charge of a brothel?
• Love the bikini—appropriate attire, as the room appears to be underwater. 
• I like how the cover copy reads like poetry/verse. Speaking of … 

Best things about this back cover:

• Epic Sleaze Acrostic!
• Seriously, someone worked long and hard on this. OK, maybe not "long," but … someone *worked* on this, is what I'm saying.
• Best word in the whole poem: "practically" (line 4)
• Mmm, "velvety charms." They're magically delicious! (I assume)

Page 123~

She chuckled, gave his hair a rumpling, then went to the door and saw a pocket-size Venus attired in a nautical costume that did full justice to her hips and formidable bosom. The Venus flashed an insouciant smile. "Mrs. Marsh, no doubt?"

They don't call Gordon Semple "The Faulkner of Sleaze" for nothing. Actually, they don't call him that at all, but they should.

~RP

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Paperback 659: The French Key / Frank Gruber (Belmont B75-2040)

Paperback 659: Belmont B75-2040 (1st thus, 1970)

Title: The French Key
Author: Frank Gruber
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The Detective Had A Coin Torso! You'll Flip (!) For This Mystery!
• I believe this font is called "hyper-serif."
• See, here's the thing. There's really only one thing to say about this cover—more girl, less Captain Coin-Body.
• Frank Gruber was a prolific writer for pulp and paperback market. This book was originally published in 1939.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah, the '60s continue to suck at all things book design.
• To its credit, this cover does have NUMISMATISTS!!!
• What will Johnny do with the blonde who says "I never tell the truth"? Careful, Johnny! It's a paradox!

Page 123~

Johnny dropped a coin on the counter and picked up a section of newspaper. He rolled the section of lead in the paper, gripped it at one end and smacked the other end into his palm.

The plumber grinned. "Oh, it's like that, huh?"

Dang. You do not want to disappoint Johnny with shoddy workmanship.

~RP

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Paperback 589: Summer Widow / Florence Stonebraker (Beacon B394)

Paperback 589: Beacon B394 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Summer Widow
Author: Florence Stonebraker
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover: 

• "First the pelicans, now this!? Damn you, oil spill!!!," raged Steve.
• "Your abdomen, it's so hot ... like ... like warm asphalt ... seriously, what the f*&^ is this?"
• The black Sharpie assault on this woman's torso may be the single lamest act of censorship on record.
• Florence Stonebraker ... she sounds like a real ... stonebreaker.
• Every girl's gotta have a pair of beach heels. Or just one beach heel, I guess.

Best things about this back cover:

• Time On Her Hands / Men On Her Mind / Sand On Her Butt
• Oh, "tucked." That says "*tucked* away at a summer resort ..." How disappointing.
• "What followed was ironical and bitter" is a sentence you should work into every story you tell for the rest of your life. It's a lapel-grabber.

Page 123~

She tried to fight. But what was the use in trying to fight an avalanche of insensate lust?

The guitar moaned. 

She screamed ...

Never mind the seeming impossibility of "insensate lust," I can't help thinking about what this monstrous woman is doing to that poor, poor guitar.

~RP

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Paperback 582: Campus Call Girl / Scott O'Neill (Gold Star Books IL7-35)

Paperback 582: Gold Star Books IL7-35 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Campus Call Girl
Author: Scott O'Neill
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• Get her some non-molded-plastic hair and I'd be In Love.
• That is one of the best come-hither/fuck-you glances I've seen on a paperback cover.
• Striped towel and striped bikini = Campus. Fierce heels and cigarette = Call Girl
• I'm weirdly distracted by "into" sitting there all alone in its own line. Maybe it can call up "The" and they can get together.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... but all the boys call me 'Double D' [WINK]"
• "In case you were wondering what I'd look like in mirror symmetry—voila!"
• Because nothing says "call girl" like faux-wood paneling.

Page 123~

Aniel shrugged. "Depends on how long 'long' is."

Truer words ...

~RP

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Paperback 514: Restless Women / John Falcone (Wizard 408)

Paperback 514: Wizard 408 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Restless Women
Author: John Falcone
Cover artist: Uncredited [awfully Gene Bilbrew-esque]

Yours for: Not for Sale (Gift to the Collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• What is it with the seriously ugly dudes on these covers lately. Looks like someone put a rubber mask on that guy and then punched him in the face til he died.
• He's dead, lady. He doesn't care about your stupid seashell fan.
• So they've brought a mattress and a ... turkey? game hen? ... to the beach?
• Top woman's body is insane. Looks more like braided challah than human flesh.
• Looks like half of your "four-woman harem" has gone missing already, buddy. You kind of suck at this. Maybe you should wake up. Oh, right, you're dead.

Best things about this back cover:

• Magenta woman stands under giant magenta feather / waterfall. No one knows why.
• If you never thought there was such a thing as "appositive abuse," check out that third paragraph.
• "Nocturnal nude swim" = when technical writers are hired to write porn.

Page 123~

But as Lola went on, he made a conscious effort to shut it out of his mind. This kind of drivel could spoil a man's breakfast. He motioned to the waiter for more coffee. Lola kept droning on. If she was an actress, he was a giraffe.

If the front cover illustration is anything to go on, I'm buying "giraffe" before I'm buying "Movie hero" who juggles "four demanding sex machines at once." I mean, have you tried juggling sex machines?! Very slippery.

~RP

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Paperback 503: TCOT Sunbather's Diary / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 4514)

Paperback 503: Pocket Books 4514 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Among my favorite McGinnis covers. I love that he's got the gorgeous woman in a discernible context—great sense of setting and mood. Love her "what the fuck do you want?" stare, and her glasses, and the texture and angles of the wooden walkway, and her hair, to say nothing of the sun-shaped title.
• If you look at her ass (and why not?), it looks like this woman's bikini was originally somewhat larger, and pink, and then it was changed to skimpier, and black. Good choice. Love the little side-tie.
• Never was too sure what was supposed to be conveyed by that arrow inside the author's initials. "Perry Mason goes down ... to the beach? gets down ... to business? takes the elevator down ... to the cafeteria?"

Best things about this back cover:

• More arrows, pointing in random directions. "Perry Mason goes around ... the block to the deli?"
• Down to the penny. Back when pennies mattered, dagnabbit!
• OMG, is Perry Mason the killer!? I have to read this! (is what no one reading the back cover would say)

Page 123~

Paul put the receiver to his ear, said, "Yes. Hello," then listened for a moment, said, "The deuce!" then turned to Perry Mason.

"Okay, Perry," he said, "the fat's in the fire."

"What?"

Even mild-mannered Perry Mason found Paul's refusal to communicate in anything but old-time exclamations and idiomatic phrases exasperating.

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #3: So Lush, So Deadly / Brett Halliday (Dell 8055)

The P. Morrison Donations #3 — Dell 8055 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: So Lush, So Deadly
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: photo

Best things about this cover:

• Talk about your $20 photo shoots, dear lord.
• Possibly the least manly cover I own. A slap fight? Girl's got a gun aimed at your head and you're gonna swat at her like she's a fly? I'm guessing that one second after this picture was taking, the girl with the gun just shook her head, said "pathetic," and walked away.
• Interesting how the fabric around their midsections appears blurred with motion. I'm just so so so glad the yellow towel didn't move any further.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dotty De Rham! Why am I not collecting these names!?
• I'm not sure I understand where the "Carnival" metaphor is coming from.
• Arson is a cardinal sin?
• The coolest private eye swings into hot action! Oh, Mike Shayne, you're the paradoxiest!

Page 123~

She was bouncing in his arms. He took her by the shoulders and made her hold still. She was still wearing the same short nightgown.

Mall Santa: After Hours.

Merry Christmas!

~RP

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The P. Morrison Donations #1: A Good Year For Dwarfs? / Carter Brown (Signet 4320)

Title: A Good Year for Dwarfs?
Author: Carter Brown
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Reader P. Morrison sent me a stack of books. They are beat up and cheesy, just like I like 'em. First up ... this.

Best things about this cover:

• Evocative painting. Who knew that extras in a "Conan" movie experienced such depths of ennui?
• Is that lady a. calming her pet Pekingese, who lives in her hair; b. physically supporting her 50 lbs of hair because he neck has simply given out; or c. shaking her head in disbelief at the idea that Carter Brown has sold over 25 million books?
• I thought "A Good Year for Dwarfs" was the tagline at first, and had no idea what that could possibly mean. Then I realized that was the title. Puzzlement remained.
• If my students ever used a hyphen that way, there's no way they'd be getting better than a C.

Best things about this back cover:

• Rimmel and Holman? As porn names go ... subtle.
• I want business cards that read simply "Davis Davis, Movie Dwarf"
• "Twilight world" normally (in paperbackese) means "homosexual."  I'm doubtful that that is the case here.

Page 123~

Any moment now, I thought frantically, I'm about to make whimpering noises out loud! "Do you play Scrabble?" I gurgled.

Man, it gets Freaky on an early '70s porn set.

~RP

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Paperback 404: On Her Majesty's Secret Service / Ian Fleming (Signet P2732)

Paperback 404: Signet P 2732 (15th ptg, ca. 1969)

Title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Author: Ian Fleming
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• Ladies Love Cool James
• Ladies also Love Quartered Lazenby
• These all seem like professional models, except for that one lady who is so rapt by Lazenby's prodigious hunk of man-scalp that she's raising her hand in astonishment while simultaneously setting out to scale his head.
• The fact that Diana Rigg is *not* on the cover of this novel is a crime against humanity.

Best things about this back cover:

• Aargh, stupid cheap books that can't be bothered to put different images on the back!
• How much do I want to have some business cards made that read "Ernest Stavro Blofeld — Master Artist of Cruelty / Licensed & Bonded / Walk-ins Welcome! [picture of kittens]"
• "...his horror-stained career" — oh, man, horror stains are the Hardest to get out. Trust me.

Page 123~

Bond pointed his skis down toward the tree-line, got down in his ugly crouch and shot, his skis screaming, into white space.

Wow. Nobody writes a sex scene quite like Fleming.

~RP

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Paperback 359: The Drowner / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal k1302)

Paperback 359: Gold Medal k1302 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Drowner
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Lesson: brackish, green water—not for swimming.
• Fantastically creepy cover. That dude pulling her down must have one powerful set of lungs. or SCUBA equipment.
• Love the bubbles—nice touch to make sure they're coming from him (I assume it's a "him") as well as her. Also love the way the words cascade down the side of her struggling body. Accentuates the scary verticality of the whole cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• This I like less.
• Without the struggling lady to complement them, the vertically arranged words here just look stupid and purposeless.

Page 123~

If the fork hesitated on its way to the healthy mouth, it was a faltering so minor he was unable to detect it. But she looked considerably less friendly.

~RP

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Paperback 107: Love in a Goldfish Bowl / Jack Sher (Cardinal C-409)

Paperback 107: Cardinal C-409 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Love in a Goldfish Bowl
Author: Jack Sher
Cover artist: one very confused photographer

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• The dog. By far, the dog. The dog is looking to us for help.
• This cover would actually be beautiful if you just replaced the photo with ... well, anything. Title font design is gorgeous.
  
• I know a Jack Sher. Hey, Jack, you wrote a book ... many years before you were born. Congratulations. [my friend's real name is Jack Shear, so this is funny only to me and possibly him]
  
• This photo = rejected Alpo campaign still #178
• What ... I ... just what the hell is supposed to be happening here? Why is she ... what is that ... what's in the ... why are they ...?
• "Gee, Blythe, where'd ya get the giant snail, and why are you keepin' him in a goldfish bowl on your belly out here on the beach?"
• This cover is the reason words like "camp," "queer," and "ambiguously gay duo" were invented.

Best things about this back cover:

• "SNAFuglugluglug..."
• SNAFU = Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. A most apt description of the front cover.
• How come nobody's named "Gordon" any more?
• The last two paragraphs are so ambiguous that they allow me to imagine that the people pictured end up addicted to heroin and turning tricks ... in Balboa.
• "It was the bending end" - that's what she said!

Page 123~

"Gordon, where are you going?" my foolish, fuzzy mother asked.

"I think I'll sleep on my boat," I said.

"You'll do nothing of the kind!" she said.

So there I was, stuck with Holloway for the night.

~RP