Paperback 856: Dividend on Death / Brett Halliday (Dell 617)

Paperback 856: Dell 617 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dividend on Death
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10-12


Best things about this cover:

• Mike Shayne fights back against Obama's Death Panels.
• "*That's* no thermometer!" cried Mike Shayne.
• It looks like he's trying to do some gun hackysack and she's like "WTF!?"
• His tie is awesome. Did he fall from the sky?

Best things about this back cover:

• How much for the alliteration classes?
• "a flock of kisses from a hot-mouthed blond"—"Her kisses were like feverish sheep…"
• Dr. Pedique has the cure! Or so I imagine.

Page 123~

She gazed at him disdainfully. "What gave you the idea you were such hot stuff? If you haven't anything else on your mind, I'll ask you to go. I won't weep any salty tears if I never see you again."

"Only freshwater tears for you, sailor. Now scram!"

~RP

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Paperback 766: Cruise Nurse / Joan Sargent // Calling Dr. Merryman / Margaret Howe (Ace Double F-101)

Paperback 766: Ace Double F-101 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Cruise Nurse / Calling Dr. Merryman
Author: Joan Sargent / Margaret Howe
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire] / Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Even on dumb, forgettable nurse fiction, Maguire's art is Gorgeous (at least I think it's Maguire—at least one bookseller attributes it to him; she Definitely has Maguire Hair)
• I want to go where she's going.
• For some reason I'm finding both the title font and the seagulls incredibly charming. In fact, the whole thing shouts "60s good-time fun" so hard that I'm having a hard time disliking anything about it, including overdressed waving dipshit there.

Best things about this other cover:

• Well … DARE HE!?
• Ah, the tale of a magnanimous doctor who deigns to screw the nurse everyone thinks is a whore. What a dreamboat.
• I like to think she just punched Dr. Merryman really hard in his right arm.
• "Calling Dr. Merryman … come in Dr. Merryman … we are still unable to locate the bottom half of your body … please stand by …"
• Don't pay …. the Merryman! ('80s music reference for y'all!)

Page 123~

"Elise thinks I'm a beauty," Clay said plaintively.

Try saying "Clay said plaintively" five times fast. Go ahead. I'll wait.

~RP

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Paperback 472: The Woman Racket / Gil Lawrence (Pyramid G468)

Paperback 472: Pyramid G468  (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Woman Racket
Author: Gil Lawrence
Cover artist: Miller (?)

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• The doctor's eyes! It's like he wants to blow that damned needle.
• The painting of the girl is actually pretty damned hot. I Love her dress. And her ... what is that, a datebook? 
• "Fury With Legs": an abstract concept that can get up and walk around!? Tell me more ...
• I like to think the girl is being pursued by Fury With Legs, mostly because she looks more like someone about to die in a horror movie than she does a girl going to get an abortion in pre-Roe v. Wade America.

Best things about this back cover:

• If you want to spice up your nouns, just put "Flesh" in front of them. It'll really make your flesh prose pop. (See!?)
• Shocking, brutally honest ... but not frank.
• Who is this "Miller" person and what does he have against first names?

Page 123~

I weighed the assets and demerits of the polygraph machines. "Yes," I told him finally. "I think it's a good idea. Lie detectors are good for snotty kids."

See, an ordinary writers would've just gone with "pros and cons," but this guy is a thesauristic master: "assets and demerits!" All hail unnatural usage! (Also, I'm imagining the polygraph industry's awesome ad campaign: "Lie detectors: They're good for snotty kids!"

~RP

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Paperback 434: Doctor Prescott's Secret / Peggy Gaddis (Beacon B302)

Paperback 434: Beacon Books B302 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Dr. Prescott's Secret
Author: Peggy Gaddis
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "A Novel That Had To Be Written ... seriously, Ms. Gaddis was contractually obligated to produce a third novel for us, and this is it."
• "Doctor Prescott's Secret" sounds like some kind of olde-timey elixir, or some product used in baking. A leavening agent, maybe. "Doctor Prescott's Secret: For All Your Vegan Baking Needs!
• One thing you need to know about the 50s and 60s is that keyholes were gigantic and ladies were often naked.

Best things about this back cover:

• "This isn't hard enough to read yet. Let's make the font tiny, faint, and ... ooh, I know, italicized. That'll be effective!"
• By "a racket which had become one of the most obnoxious social evils of our times," I assume they mean "Girl Scouts" (kidding!)
• Cancers grow. I don't think they "grow up." If your cancer gets surly, gets a drivers license, and eventually moves out of the house, consider yourself lucky.

Page 123~

But just the same, it had steel claws that tore at her until she was weak with the need for Nick's body possessing her own.

You'll be happy to know that "it" is lust — "sheer animal lust," to be exact — and not some sadistic robot.

~RP

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Paperback 329: The Girls' Place / Saxon Craig (Evening Reader 1247)

Paperback 329: Evening Reader 1247 (PBO, 1966)

Title: The Girls' Place
Author: Saxon Craig
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Joan Collins used to be Hot.
• The tops of those stockings suggest that the artist was planning on drawing a garter belt and then forgot/ran out of time—weirdly peaked.
• Top lady does not appear to be experiencing "Shame." That lower lady, though, yeesh. She's either wasted or sleeping or both. Or maybe she just lost a contact.
• Did you ever see "Sixteen Candles?" If so, do you remember when Jake's hot girlfriend gets sloshed and then gets her hair caught in a door jamb when Jake shuts the door on her, and she's just stuck sitting there until Jami Gertz and some other girl come over and cut her loose with a giant pair of scissors, and so she has a ridiculously huge swath of hair cut out of the back of her head? I think her character was based on the lower half of this cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• You had me at "Vixen..."
• Please, will one of you, this Halloween, dress up as "the witch in the leotards and the red pumps" from "The Girls' Place." It will mean so much to me. Take pictures.

Page 123~

In her world, love was hard to come by, and even Lasky's brutalizing love was better than nothing at all—even if it took form only as sexual expression.

Yeah, that wasn't so hot; let's try this:

Page 80~

But Pat refused to stop, and after a moment or two of trying to push the nurse away, she succumbed to the rise of her passion a second time. Groping blindly, she managed to get the fat nurse to turn so that their love could be enjoyed simultaneously, and though her body was foul smelling, the lovely brunette could not resist the temptation to indulge herself in the one thing that roused her more than anything else. And so they clung together there for many minutes, giving themselves up to the mutual enjoyment of each other, until finally they both found the release they sought.

Walking the fine line between sexy (lesbian nurse sex!) and gross ("foul smelling!?") ... Just be happy I spared you the part about how Jeanne "rocketed over the cliff of climax to plunge into the canyon of satisfied passion."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 37

Title: Wolf in Man's Clothing (Dell 136 — 1st ptg, 1947)
Author: Mignon G. Eberhart
Cover artist: [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $20

• So ... it's about a nurse with giant bloody hands who sticks needles in her head. Interesting.
• Where the wolf?
• Love love love the little Dell mystery eye-in-the-keyhole logo.

• This book's got a hypo cover, with all its original permagloss, *and* it's a mapback? Book sale jackpot!
• "You know what my favorite part of the book was? ... Fork."
• "Balifold" must be either a castle that has sunk into the earth or ... a minaret construction plant.

Page 123~

I put my finger on it and he looked at it, his face as inexpressive as a Red Indian's.

~RP

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Paperback 299: Ward 20 / James Warner Bellah (Popular Library 195)

Paperback 299: Popular Library 195 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Ward 20
Author: James Warner Bellah
Cover artist: Rudolph Belarski

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• "I know my breasts are soft and ripe and possibly delicious but let's just keep your hand right here, mkay?"
• Most pristine Army Hospital ever. Look at that bandage! Those sheets! Her uniform! His pajamas! Immaculate.
• Everyone in a Rudolph Belarski painting always has the smoothest, most luscious, buttery skin. These folks are angelic, bordering on cherubic.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the way "LOVELY LEGS" springs up tall.
• "Meneilly" joins the growing roster of "Absurd Names from the world of Vintage Paperbacks" — I don't even know if that's a first or last name. I'm praying last.
• Awesome line break near the bottom: "... their need for women — so hard / To fill"; you had me at "hard."

Page 123~

"Let me go now," she whispered.
"You don't want me to."
"You've got to, Joe!"
"Who says so? You don't. You want me to hold onto you until you can't breathe — until you can't think or —"

This was later turned into the very unpopular movie, "What Women Don't Want"

~RP

Bonus material: opening blurb from one A.Q. Maisel of The Saturday Review of Books suggests that "there are many who will gag" when they read this book. Best come-on since, well, "The Macabre Wife Swapping Escapades Will Make You Vomit!.

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Paperback 234: Diagnosis: Love / Barbara Bonham (Monarch 466)

Paperback 234: Monarch 466 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Diagnosis: Love
Author: Barbara Bonham
Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• The long awaited prequel to "Diagnosis: Murder"
• Whatever was going on in "their private lives," it apparently involved massive amounts of nitrous oxide
• "Take off that clown make-up. This is a hospital, not a whorehouse!" / "Oh fuck you, Steve. Perform the appendectomy yourself. I'm going outside to smoke ... and maybe talk to Larry. That's right, I said 'Larry.' Asshole."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Garnet?"
• "Chad!" - that's more like it.
• " ... a strange malady ..." - later diagnosed as "hot pants"

Page 123 (last page!)~

He took the thermometer from her and glanced at it quickly. "Normal. No germs here. It would be perfectly safe to kiss you." He pulled her up into his arms.

I really hope that thermometer was in her mouth.

~RP

Paperback 229: Demented / Donald Jorden Young (Gold Star Books IL7-19)

Paperback 229: Gold Star Books IL7-19 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Demented
Author: Donald Jorden Young
Cover artist: uncredited (though I credited it to "Robert Maguire" for some reason - looks at least as much like the work of Mitchell Hooks)

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Instant Klassic - unread, near-perfect condition ... vibrant colors ... a stripping nurse (!?) ... a fifth-rate publishing house ... a text-book example of the Floating Head motif ... absolutely gorgeous, in all its sleazy marginality
• "My prescription: take two of ... these."
• "Anthony Perkins is ... Frankenstein's monster in ... 'Demented!'"
• I like that the blurb features all three people depicted on the cover: "nurse," "ex-GI" with "war-born neurosis," and "weak professor," who frankly looks quite hale and handsome, if a bit disturbed by the hovering, giant head of Captain Mind Control...

Best things about this back cover:

• This is basically a tepid, watered down version of the plot to "The Stars, My Destination" by Alfred Bester.
• Love the random extra space between "perverted" and "lusts." It's like the copywriter tried many different versions of the final word and forgot to adjust the spacing when he'd finally decided on the winner. "Ah, 'lusts' ... le mot juste!"
• As for the nurse ... Check her out here, in a primmer, more demure moment...

Page 123 ... is too boring, so here's something from the teaser page that opens the book:

Encouraged, he put an arm completely around her, so that one hand rested on her right breast. Encountering no objection he slid his hand into her blouse, which was low-cut with a natural inviting slit [?]. Feeling no bra against his hand, he was exhilarated holding her breast, so smooth and full, if a bit cool [!!?].

~RP

Paperback 219: Combat Nurse / Frieda K. Franklin (Pocket Books 1147)

The Make-Your-Own-Commentary Experiment, Part the Third (sound off in "Comments" section)
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Paperback 219: Pocket Books 1147 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: Combat Nurse
Author: Frieda K. Franklin
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: $10



Page 123~

In the subdued light their faces were hard voluptuous masks of powder and rouge and thick gleaming lipstick smeared like coating of fat over their pouting mouths.

~RP

Paperback 200: That None Should Die / Frank G. Slaughter (Perma Books M-4026)

Paperback 200: Perma Books M-4026 (2nd ptg, 1955)

Title: That None Should Die
Author: The insanely prolific Frank G. Slaughter
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: $6

So I had an early 70s movie tie-in of Chester Himes' "Cotton Comes to Harlem" all cued up and ready to go as my 200th Paperback ... and then I went to Plattsburgh.


Best things about this cover:

• This doctor is

a. preparing to shoot the newborn at the ceiling like a rubberband
b. preparing to make "newborn tea"
c. deciding whether to keep it or throw it back
d. looking Way too long and hard at the baby's genital region, or
e. so handsome that nobody cares what he's actually doing

• I love how the mother is the very least important figure on the cover - almost like an afterthought, or a shorthand visual cue to let you know that the baby is alive and he didn't steal it.
• "That none should die, Dr. Rand Handsome ingested the mysterious, rune-inscribed baby before it could explode."

Best things about this back cover:

• "That story alone is fascinating" - uh, no, sorry it's not.
• If this description makes the book sound anti-socialized/nationalized medicine, that's because the book *is* anti-socialized/nationalized medicine. The first (teaser) page has as its headline: "President announces medical care free to rich and poor alike!" - in this book, that's the terrifying Orwellian future. Because we all know that real doctors are all driven by "ideals" (see cover), unlike nameless bureaucrats who want only to flatten all social distinctions and erect statues of Lenin.

Page 123~

"I shouldn't be saying this, I suppose, but you look like a better class of man than we usually get in a job like this, and I hope you're going to stay with us."

He added, "I mean, I'm not gay or anything, but dear god you're handsome."

~RP

Paperback 193: Naked Nurse / Ben Anderton (Chariot Books CB-216)

Paperback 193: Chariot Books CB-216 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Naked Nurse
Author: Ben Anderton
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire]

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Semicolon? Really? Did you think that would look fancier than your run-of-the-mill comma? And what is up with that first dash, after "Raw"? What did the comma ever do to you, copywriter guy?
• That's right, my first comment about the cover of a book called "Naked Nurse," which depicts an honest-to-god naked nurse, was about punctuation. That is how I roll.
• "She admired his skill in surgery" - Really? She does not look like she is "admiring" anything. She looks like she is cowering in fear. Naked fear.
• The art is actually first-rate and looks suspiciously like the work of the legendary Bob Maguire (his female faces and hair are very distinctive)
• Ben Anderson's chosen pseudonym was woefully inadequate
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh god. And I thought the front cover had punctuation issues. It's a bloodbath back here. "White capped" needs a hyphen, the dash after "nurse" is ridiculous and superfluous, there should be a comma after "Young" ... jeez louise, there's subject / verb disagreement in the description of "Lynn!" I can't go on. You can see the carnage for yourself. I wonder if Chariot Books outsourced their cover copy-writing to, let's say, the Ukraine, and then had the Ukrainians forward their work to Laos for proofing...
• "Penetrating" - tee hee
• "For Men" - you don't say ...

Page 123~

The local minister who performed the ceremony, so far from the strident complexities of the city, had expressed his pleasure in learning that the community was to have a new expert surgeon to help care for their ills.

Oh boy, an expert surgeon! No more getting appendectomies from Floyd the Barber! Hurrah!

~RP