Paperback 1106: The Scarf / Robert Bloch (Gold Medal d1727)

 Paperback 1106: Gold Medal d1727 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: The Scarf

Author: Robert Bloch

Cover artist: Uncredited (Harry Bennett?)

Condition: 6/10

Value: $15

Best things about this cover: 

• The terrifying story of a girl whose deep fear of scarves drove her to retreat into a dome of mosquito netting!
• I mean, maybe it's not the most flattering scarf, but it seems like she's overreacting. Just try it on!
• Robert Bloch, after 1960, is always (on book covers) "the author of PSYCHO" (which is what happens when you write PSYCHO)
• The killer-POV cover has a long history in paperbacks. Here's a Rudolph Belarski cover from the mid-'40s that's basically got the same idea as this cover ("fear hands" and all!):

And now the back cover of The Scarf:

Best things about this back cover: 

• That opening graf is a dud. "Of a sort"? What the hell does that mean? "Early"? Compared to what? Dan Morley? That is not a name that inspires terror. Or admiration. Or much of anything.
• "Neatly plotted" sounds like an insult. A backhanded compliment. "Hey, you can plot ... neat!"
• Kids: you really should wear gloves when handling abnormal psychology. Don't let the Saturday Review tempt you into behavior you're going to regret.

Page 123~

His thumb—a weenie encircled by a diamond ring—prodded my knee.

One of the greatest "Page 123" sentences of all time. You think it's peaked at "weenie encircled by a diamond ring," but then the blunt "prodded my knee" comes along and really delivers the knockout. "Prodded." Wow. Word choice matters. 10/10. Perfect. This is why I do "Page 123"—always entertaining, and then every once in a while: gold.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky]

Paperback 1041: Draw the Curtain Close / Thomas B. Dewey (Pocket Books 64003)

Paperback 1041: Pocket Books 64003 (1st ptg, 1968)

Title: Draw the Curtain Close
Author: Thomas B. Dewey
Cover artist: Uncredited (looks like Harry Bennett signature)

Condition: 4/10
Estimated value: $100000000 (jk prob like $5 but I can't find this copy online)

[Contribution from Cassie and Jordan Bell-Masterson]

Best things about this cover:

• Well, not his face
• Well, not the font
• This is such an odd moment to document on a book cover. Is she taking off her shirt? Not such a big reveal if she was clearly already sitting there pantsless. Is that even a shirt? It looks like she's trying to wear a pair of red shorts as a shirt. Maybe she's not well. Shapely, though, I'll give her that. And armed.
• She needs to repaint that room; it's making me nauseated.
• I love the "modesty sheet" that is conveniently obscuring her butt crack from view.
• It doesn't matter what she does or doesn't wear because nothing is going to outshine that chalked-up denim suit that Flatface McSkinnyTie has on.
• This is apparently a hard-boiled writer of some repute, the first book in his "Mac" series. Since this is a "reading copy," I should clearly, uh, read it.

Best things about this back cover:

• He Took His Hat Off, WHY!? I need to know. You can't just shove him into a tiny strip of red, remove his hat, and expect me NOT to have questions!
• I love that this is a book about expensive books. And showbiz dolls.
• None of my books are worth 30 Gs. Alas.
• Wait, is the fact that he's not "a literary type" supposed to endear him to me. Because if so, mission decidedly unaccomplished.

Page 123~

I had to wait a couple of minutes for the elevator. I shared it going down with a cockeyed lady in a red satin dress who hiccoughed regularly at intervals of three or four seconds. Halfway down she said without warning, "Hi, Mac."

Just now realizing that a. "hiccoughed" is a freaky-looking word and b. this dude must get a lot of false alarms where someone calling his name is concerned, what with all the "Hey, Mac"s floating around in the world. It's like his name is "Buddy" or "Pal" or "Chief" or "Bruh."

~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 1028: Footsteps in the Night / Dolores Hitchens (Permabook M-4261)

Paperback 1028: Perma Books M-4261 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Footsteps in the Night
Author: Dolores Hitchens
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Condition: 8.5/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• I have no idea what this book is about, but I love trying to work out what the hell is going on in this scene. Is she being stalked? Or is that just her husband wondering why the hell his drunk wife is wandering off in one shoe while holding the other shoe?
• Love her little fingernail-biting gesture. So perfectly pensive. "Hmmm ... now where did I leave my other shoe?" This is the shoe equivalent of losing your glasses because they are on top of your damned head.
• I'm not the biggest fan of Harry Bennett's art work—a little too sketchy/sloppy-looking for my tastes—but this scene is pretty evocative and intriguing. I just wish there were ... more of it. The '60s are a fast-moving tragedy for fully painted cover art. Canvas shrinks. Text takes over. I don't even like thinking about it.
• Dolores Hitchens is one of those writers I keep meaning to read but not reading. I think I read something of hers a while back and liked it. I just opened to a random page and this is the first thing my eyes hit: "Mrs. Holden's pouter-pigeon bosom strained the buttons of the blue quilted housecoat." OK, sure, I'm in.

Best things about this back cover:

• LOL text shaping. Actually, it's kind of perfect that her quizzical face is being used as the top end of a "?"
• This isn't the greatest back cover copy. There's no context for any of these names. You could just keep asking questions with random names and I'd be like "I ... don't know. Still don't know. Should I care? Who Are These People? What Is Happening In This Book?"
• Dronk! When you're not just drunk ...

Page 123~

"Cops are like this, as long as you admit what they want you to admit, they're okay. So I admit I was up there, in your house, and I left at such-and-such a time, and I got home at a certain hour and all that crap. You think they're going to lean on me, try to make me say what we were doing?"

Now I want to know what they were doing. According to an earlier paragraph on this page, it involved "hot yearnings." Hot shoeless yearnings, no doubt.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 986: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts / Donald Barthelme (Pocket 80771)

Paperback 986: Pocket Books 80771 (1st ptg, 1976)

Title: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
Author: Donald Barthelme
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap.
• "Uh ... Martha ... Junior's up."
• Seriously, though, holy crap. That ain't right.
• I don't normally go past the '60s with my collection, but I discovered some time ago that '70s paperback covers are their own kind of bonkers. Not always fully painted, but often loopy enough design-wise to be really interesting. I suspect that if I ever start *adding* to my collection again (I've still got ~2000 books I *haven't* written about), I'll be hunting a lot of pristine '70s/'80s-era stuff. I mean, if the 60s were my outer limit 22 years ago (when I started collecting) ... no reason that limit can't shift with the times.
• Nice to see Harry Bennett's name in the artist credit. Hell, nice to see an artist credit at all. Bennett was a prolific '60s cover artist. No idea how long his cover career lasted. . . whoa. He lived until 2012, age 93.
• FEEL FREE TO BUY ME THIS ORIGINAL BENNETT COVER PAINTING ANY TIME.

Best things about this back cover:

• No, this "text" crap will not do, you stupid '70s blurb-driven back cover.
• It does make me want to read Barthelme, though, which I haven't done in decades.

Page 123~ (from "Alice")

I want to fornicate with Alice but it is a doomed project fornicating with Alice there are obstacles impediments preclusions estoppels I will exhaust them for you what a gas see cruel deprivements SECTION SEVEN moral ambiguities SECTION NINETEEN Alice's thighs are like SECTION TWENTY-ONE

I need to know all the SECTIONs so I can use them as shorthand I am somewhat interested in SECTION TWENTY-ONE PS there is no punctuation in this story

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 953: Spill the Jackpot / A.A. Fair (Dell R117)

Paperback 953: Dell R117 (1st thus, 1962)

Title: Spill the Jackpot
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 9.5/10

Best things about this cover:

• So. Great. It's like a rogue's gallery of hot and shady '60s people.
• Redhead's cigarette is freaking me out. Like some sixth finger that got horribly bent backwards.
• Just genius to use the margins of the cover this way. The encroachment of text, to the point of total visual dominance, is of course one of the most lamentable trends in paperback history. This cover responds to that trend not by shrinking the art (which often happened) but by incorporating the text into the art, making the margins the place of real action. It's superior cover design.

Best things about this back cover:

• Man, that "VEGAS" font is god-awful—totally out of sync, period-wise, with the cool-modern front cover.
• Oh wow, that's a rake. I had to look at that visual element very closely to figure that out. This back cover is the Bizarro version of the front cover, i.e. it's Terribly designed.
• "Jaded pleasure seekers"! I relate to these people. JPS4LIFE!

Page 123~

Somehow, looking at her, you felt she hadn't been to bed and that she wasn't accustomed to going to sleep before daylight.

Coincidentally, Vampire Weekend was playing on the radio when I typed this out.

~RP

P.S. I found this immaculate Detective Book Club offer card sleeping safely in the pages of this book.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 925: The Thin Man / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M4202)

Paperback 925: Perma Books M4202 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Thin Man
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $15-20 (perfect, square, bright)

Best things about this cover:

• Nick looks like I feel these days. "Fuck all this. Where's the bar?"
• The color shading on this is all kinds of weird. Conventional figurative art that looks like it's been cut out of a magazine by an 8-year-old and then glued into the white rectangle.
• Joey Backwards chair is explaining certain anatomical facts about himself to Millie Sweetgams, much to her amusement.
• ASTA!

 Best things about this back cover:

• Bah. Same.
• Cover is cropped weird. Very close to lopping off lettering on the left.
• "When you were wrestling with Mimi [!?] didn't you get excited." "Oh, a little." Man, between front and back covers, you'd think "The Thin Man" were subtitled "All About Boners."

Page 123~

"Good God, no! She hates men more than any woman I've ever known who wasn't a Lesbian."

Sorry, fans of movie-Nick. Didn't mean to startle you with book-Nick's dickishness. Mix a cocktail and drink until you forget you ever read the above quote.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 829: Up Above the World / Paul Bowles (Pocket Books 75222)

Paperback 829: Pocket Books 75222 (1st ptg, 1968)

Title: Up Above the World
Author: Paul Bowles
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated Value: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Ooh, I love legitimate fiction. So classy.
• Swamp glove monkey scarf something something.
• Attempt to break most obscure Guinness World Record goes horribly, unspeakably wrong.
• There was a brief, terrible period in the '60s where cover artist just mashed all pictorial elements together into ugly globs.

Best things about this back cover:

• Paul Bowles! That name again … Paul Bowles! Thanks, boring cover.
• "… with mere strokes of words" (so *that's* how writing works)
• I want to change "gifts" to "cocks" in that last blurb. Just 'cause.

Page 123~

She hesitated and took a sip of coffee. "But what have we got in common?"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 672: The Jugger / Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) (Pocket Books 50149)

Paperback 672: Pocket Books 50149 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Jugger
Author: Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: Not For Sale (part of the "Parker PBO" collection)


Best things about this cover:

• A bizarre constellation of color. Bit too much white space, but I kind of enjoy almost abstract feel to this one. Say what you will about Harry Bennet—he had a Style.
• Dude in foreground is ominous. Nice isolation of the billy club. Guy reminds me of any number of corrupt Jim Thompson sheriffs (a redundant phrase, I realize).
• This is another of my Powell's purchases. Paid too much for this one. Don't care. Must. Have. All. Parkers.

Best things about this back cover:

• It think my main objection to this era of Pocket Books is the ghastly base color of the spine (and, here, back cover). Pure puke.
• That "art" is useless.
• "Tiftus" is a fantastic name.
• "...the eyes of a pickpocket and the mouth of a whore." Dang. Vivid.

Page 123~ (actually p. 23, as p. 123 disappears between chapters)

Damn Tiftus! He kept talking all the time, talking as though he knew exactly what he was talking about, but he never said anything. Jabber jabber jabber, and nothing coming out.

Stark does great third-person subjective. Man, I gotta get back into this series. I took a break to read Gaiman and Questlove, and Aslan's Jesus bio comes out Tuesday ... stop writing for a second, people! I need to catch up.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 667: The Handle / Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) (Pocket Books 50220)

Paperback 667: Pocket Books 50220 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Handle
Author: Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: Not For Sale [part of my "Parker PBO" collection]


Best things about this cover:

• The best thing about any Stark cover is the fact that "Stark" is on the cover.
• What a weird picture. It's like these people are standing on the deck of a listing boat, and there is a slight anomaly or disturbance off the port bough.
• Never been a big fan of Harry Bennett's work—bit too sloppy and unsexy for me. But James Garner's lookin' pretty good here, and she has a certain elegant something, and Flat Top Thompson over there has a nifty weaselyness about him. It's a motley assortment of folk, but interestingly rendered.
• I picked up this book and one other Stark PBO during my recent west coast excursion (the reason for this blog's two-week hiatus). I paid too much, but my steely collector's resolve melts in the presence of Stark. Stark is my kryptonite. I got these at Powell's Books in Portland, which is also my kryptonite. Just a magnificent bookstore. Kind of overwhelming, actually. If I were to leave there without a book, it would feel like a kind of failure. I've decided I need to own first editions of all the Parker novels. I currently own ... four, I think. Lots of work left to do (which is the whole Fun of collecting). 

Best things about this back cover:

• Not much here. 
• An odd and not-that-provocative raised quote. 
• I have not yet read this one. I am currently reading my way through the whole set of Parkers, in order. Finished Man with the Getaway Face on vacation; now part-way into The Outfit. Westlake is one of those writers who never lets me down. Clean, direct, smart, funny prose and dialogue. Effortless. I'm so glad he was so prolific, because it means I still have years of Westlakian good times ahead of me.

Page 123~

He had brought the bourbon bottle along and used it sparingly to rinse out his mouth when it became too dry, but he soon saw he wouldn't be able to survive too long without water. 

This makes me sad for the bourbon.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 579: The Score / Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) (Pocket Books 35014)

Paperback 579: Pocket Books 35014 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Score
Author: Richard Stark (pseud. of Donald Westlake)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: No way (probably worth $50-75 in this (perfect) condition)

Best things about this cover:

• A fine paperback original by one of my very favorite crime writers. If I had to save just a dozen books from my collection, this would probably be one of them.
• Startlingly original cover painting by Harry Bennett. Brilliant use of the windshield as a frame-within-the-frame, highlighting Parker and his gang of robbers by stark contrast with the darkness of the imposing, cover-filling truck. Little highlights of color here and there really pop. Red background adds an intense, menacing edge to the whole scene. Just great.
• I'm reading my way through all the Parker novels right now (well, when I get time in between all the damn reading I have to do for work). Just finished teaching "The Hunter" in my crime fiction class—the opening of that book is one of the greatest opening chapters / pieces of character development I've ever read.

Best things about this back cover:

• IFFY! "Goddam!"
• Now the truck is (literally, visually) riding on "IF..." Nice. 
• "It was so stupid it might even work."—the creative team behind "Crystal Pepsi"

Page 123~

Just at four a.m. they entered the Command Room and found the three bodies; all three were now dead.

That post-semicolon part is brutal, particularly the "now."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 338: Dead Man's Tale / Ellery Queen [Stephen Marlowe] (Pocket Books 6117)

Paperback 337: Pocket Books 6117 (PBO 1961)

Title: Dead Man's Tale
Author: Ellery Queen (ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "He ... he was out picking tulips and his sabots slipped and he hit her head on a windmill blade, which caused him to choke on some edam. I do not know how we ended up underwater. Dike broke, I suppose."
• This title is superlame.
• Never would have known this was ghostwritten by Stephen Marlowe if I hadn't gotten on Abe Books to check prices. There's a signed copy available there in which Marlowe writes "Just this once..."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Hacha" sounds like some kind of drink you'd order at a hipster café in Brooklyn.
• This plot sounds interesting. I really want to know what they're going to tell Hacha once they find him. It better have something to do with a dead man, or a windmill. Otherwise, total ripoff.

Page 123~

Then they heard Lou Goody tramping up the hill.

And I thought "Barney Street" was a good name.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 56

Actually, I have no idea what the last two books are from the Book Sale. They appear to have sort of blended in with the rest of the collection. So the last two books will just be ones I can't place, not yet officially in The Collection — stuff that *could* have come from the Book Sale. Enjoy.

Title: Some Slips Don't Show (Pocket Books 6095, 1st ptg, 1961)
Author: A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $8

• Expression on that guy's face is Nightmarish. That chair, however, is pure '60s gold, as is the Jackie-O style of Miss Primping there. I love the mysterious inscription over Dean Martin's ugly cousin's head: "Amy." It's as if he's thinking, "Amy, I'm sorry I barfed on your other dress."
  
• I believe this painting represents the seated drunk green guy's perspective. He's so sloshed that the objects of his ogling have huge, sickly, sweeping motion lines. Throwing back her hair creates a Pollockesque swoosh. Kind of looks like the number "9."
• On second, or third, glance, I believe that that is not a chair he's sitting in, but a hovercraft. He's reminding more and more of that Martian from the "Flintstones" every time I look at him.

• Seriously? You decide to reprise an image from the front cover and you choose *him*!? "Hey, [hic!], look at me! I'm flying through your doorways! Lady!"
• I'm not sure I get the joke? Is she naked under clothes? Is her slip really showing? Is there a pun on "slip," so that I'm supposed to understand that she's made an error of some sort. Is "slip" some horrible anatomical code word? Only the racially ambiguous drunk alien knows.

Page 123~

"And furthermore," I told her, "don't hand me that line about what I owe you. I don't owe you a damned thing!"

He's short, but Donald Lam can talk down to the ladies like nobody's business (I actually really like the Cool + Lam books by "Fair")

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 22

Title: You'll Like My Mother (Fawcett T1418, 1969)
Author: Naomi A. Hintze
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $5

• "I think I *will* like your mother. She sounds ho- ... whoa! Is that her? Oh ... man. I, uh, I have this thing I have to go to now. Band practice, I think."
• MILF! (Mom I'd Like to Flee)
• "Maybe if I hide under this giant Fabio wig, mom won't see me..."

• Dear Best Sellers, "THEY" has no antecedent. Thank you.
• We need to revive the word "CHILLER-DILLER"
• Book-of-the-Month Club News is creeping me out with its metaphors. "It's like watching a demonic baby emerge from the birth canal. You'll love it."

Page 123~

In my mind's eye I fixed a firm picture of that fawn-and-brown cat catching that one gray rat. One rat; there were no more.

This is, by far, the most interesting thing happening on this page.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 202: Cotton Comes to Harlem / Chester Himes (Dell 1513)

Back from Brooklyn and ready to drop some righteous cover art. Moving right along...

Paperback 202: Dell 1513 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: Cotton Comes to Harlem
Author: Chester Himes
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Lovely, delicate, enigmatic. I don't recall anyone having sex in a police station in this book, though police and sex were certainly involved, generally.
• Not a fan of the trend (over the course of the 60s) toward smaller art and bigger words.
• Harry Bennett is a prolific artist whom I most associate with PermaBooks from the late 50s through the mid-60s. His stuff is often more jagged and angular and rougher looking than this little painting would suggest.
• "Pinktoes" is (like a lot of Himes's work, in one way or another) pretty bawdy, and concerned specifically with the intersection of sex and race in American society. My copy of "Pinktoes" is in fact pink. You'll see.
• I just got some promotional postcards for the "Paperback Collectors Show & Sale" (Sunday, Mar. 29, 2009) in the mail last week, and the picture on them has eerie similarities to this Himes cover:
  

And now the back of "Cotton..."


Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, words
• "The wildest of camps" - "Camps?" Plural? I'm familiar with this definition...

1. An affectation or appreciation of manners and tastes commonly thought to be artificial, vulgar, or banal.
2. Banality, vulgarity, or artificiality when deliberately affected or when appreciated for its humor: “Camp is popularity plus vulgarity plus innocence” (Indra Jahalani).

But I've never seen the word used that way in the plural. Interesting (to me alone, perhaps)

Page 23 (for Page 123, see Paperback 201):

He was a nondescript-looking man with black and white striped suspenders draped over a blue sport shirt and buttoned to old-fashioned, wide-legged dark brown pants. He looked like the born victim of a cheating wife.

~RP

P.S. One of the biggest thrills of the Crossword Puzzle Tournament this past weekend was having multiple people come up to me and tell me how much they loved this website. I get so happy when my poor, neglected baby blog gets some much-deserved attention. Hard for "Pop Sensation" to feel adequate when her big brother gets literally 50x the traffic she does. If this site were anywhere near as popular as my crossword site, I'd pass out from excitement. Crossword constructor Doug Peterson was kind and thoughtful enough to bring a gift for me to the tournament: a lurid paperback with a crosswordy cover. So look for a special write-up of that in the next week or so.

Paperback 62: Due or Die / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition B174)

Paperback 62: Dell First Edition B174 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Due or Die
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Harry Bennett


Best things about this cover:

• It's got a lot going for it: redhead, cigarette, and alcohol all represented within about one square inch of the cover, plus fierce heels and a trench-coated dude looking on, wryly.
• I think she is a monster. Why can't we see her face? Why?
• Answer: she doesn't have one.
• Actually, I think her face is some kind of hologram projector, and Johnny Liddell standing in the doorway is the resulting image: "Help me, drunken redhead, you're my only hope."
• There is a Perma Books version of Hammett's The Glass Key that (if memory serves) looks Just like this cover. Frank Kane is no Dashiell Hammett, in case you're wondering.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Kill Joy" - good idea. You meant Joy Behar, right?
• I like Johnny Liddell's mug just peeping out of the wallet slot.
• I also really like the line about the fat man in the phone booth. Now that's good cover copy.

RP

Paperback 19: Cardinal C-362

Paperback 19: Cardinal C-362 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: A Murder Is Announced
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

Not much, except the fact that this woman can apparently make the phone magically float up to her face. Otherwise, this is a pretty generic late 50s cover.

RP