Paperback 1168: The Red Right Hand / Joel Townsley Rogers (Pocket Books 385)

Paperback 1168: Pocket Books 385 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Red Right Hand

Author: Joel Townsley

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $4-5

Best things about this cover: 

• The "thumb" ... it ... it just ... look, that's not a thumb, is what I'm saying. Look at it in total isolation. It is astonishingly, in every way, not a thumb. The more you look, the more obscene it gets.
• That hand does not look particularly red. Perhaps it is Communist.
• This looks like someone got buried alive in a granary, like in Frank Norris's The Octopus. How did he get buried? Like the cover says, it's "A Mystery."

Best things about this back cover: 

• "There was a little man—who got away"—well that's the worst nursery rhyme of all time. Did the little man go to market at least? Come on, give me something.
• St. Erme!? Really? St. [hesitation noise]!? Do you pronounce it "ERMIE?" Forget what the little man did with St. Erme's right hand, what did he do with the rest of the letters in Erme's name?!
• The writing here is terrible. Choppy, awkward. Who are these people? Why do I care? Why is the book talking to me!!? "You'll keep going on excitedly..." Well now I definitely won't. Just to show you that you're not the boss of me.

Page 123~

"You live around here, Dr. Ridder?" he asked me, making coffee.

"Riddle," I said. "No, I live in New York. I'm on my way down from Vermont. I wonder when that car passed me." 

"You saw it passing you?"

"No," I said. "I didn't see it."

"And you say you're the Riddler, is that right?" "Just Riddle." "Justin Griddle?" It goes on like this.

~RP

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Paperback 1167: The Devil Threw Dice / Amber Dean (Pocket Books 1090)

Paperback 1167: Pocket Books 1090 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Devil Threw Dice

Author: Amber Dean

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 6/10

Value: $5-7

Best things about this cover: 

• Norman Bates lookin' like "aw, geez, not again." 
• "She was the kind of gal that many men might kill." Oh, one of those.
• "OK, sure, I threw dice at her, but since when has that ever killed anyone? I've thrown dice at lots of girls and none of them ever died!"
• I assume that's the girl's ghost looming over him. "Thought you'd be rid of me, did you? Ha. I'm gonna haunt this stairwell til doomsday, brother!"
• Even in death, the woman must be portrayed in a way that emphasizes her shapeliness, even if that means that her left breast levitates comically skyward.
• Amber Dean ... is a woman. Not a lot of women writing this kind of hardboiled fare midcentury. She published over a dozen crime novels with Doubleday between the mid-'40s and mid-'60s. I just discovered that a. I own other books by her, and b. she was from western NY (specifically Rochester, only a few hours drive from me). The University of Rochester has her papers. The academic / detective in me wants to Start A New Project...

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Someone had killed her. And it had to be a guy!" I mean, statistically, yeah, pretty much.
• I'm calling it right now. It was Putt Perry. That guy is two little arcs away from Butt Berry. Who knows what depravities someone with that name could get up to!?
• "She had an excitingly evil face" ... not one of them depressingly evil faces you see sometimes. No siree, this was an evil that could really rev a guy's engine, if you know what I mean [yeah, we get it, Putt, we get it]
• Artist credit! Lou Marchetti! A titan. Can't say that this is my favorite cover of his, but the man generally does great work.

Page 123~

Somewhere a bird twittered sleepily, and an answering twitter said "Darling, I'm here. I'll be here when you wake."

What the hell kind of twisted avian fantasy is this?! 

~RP

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Paperback 1166: Asking For Trouble / Joe Rayter (Pocket Books 1132)

Paperback 1166: Pocket Books 1132 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Asking For Trouble

Author: Joe Rayter

Cover artist: James Meese

Condition: 6/10

Value: $6

Best things about this cover: 

• "I call this dance The Karate Robot! Hey, where are you going? Come back here!" 
• I know there's a lot happening in the foreground, but I can't stop staring at the ghost waiter, wtf? "I have come to steal souls and serve drinks ... looks like we're about out of drinks."
• James Meese is probably a Mount Rushmore-level cover artist, but I take him for granted. I don't think of him as having a distinctive style, but man every one of his paintings just look like "yep, that is gold-standard '50s action pulp action." The woman in particular is a work of kinetic beauty, with the double Fear Hand™ and everything. The dude ... well, you can't say he's not unique.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Someone decided to pull the price tag off with something less than care.
• Kinsey Report reference, mwah! A+ topicality. The one on male sexuality came out in '48, the one on women in '53, and they gave people a way to talk more openly about the whole range of human sexual behavior (beyond procreative sex). And man did they talk. I used to specifically collect pbs that referenced the Kinsey Report on their covers, or that featured sex studies à la Kinsey—most of those books were, uh, not put out by mainstream publishers.
• By brining up Kinsey, the book kinda sorta vaguely hints that Christy might've had female lovers. Or queer friends. Or both. I'm adding a "Lesbian" tag to this write-up. I'm never gonna read the book, so the tag may be wishful thinking, but so be it. You tell me she's "wild," I feel like I got license.
• This cover copy tells me nothing except I hope to god the author doesn't actually write this way

Page 123~

I passed a saloon that had a big oil painting of a heavy-breasted nude reclining on a red couch over the bar and decided that it looked like a good place to have breakfast.

I've made breakfast decisions for worse reasons.

~RP

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Paperback 1164: And Sometimes Death / Jo Valentine (Pocket Books 1083)

Paperback 1164: Pocket Books 1083 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: And Sometimes Death

Author: Jo Valentine

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• "A, E, I, O, U ..."
• What's the opposite of a peeping tom? Where you peep ... from inside the house ... at people who aren't hiding at all?
• "Hold me, Steve. My weird neighbor is freaking me out."
• LOL the original title makes it sound like a novel about the psychological problems of a misunderstood Norse god
• What is the ragged-edged frame supposed to evoke here? It's not torn paper, or an explosion. More like a stain. Or a country in the Balkans you forgot existed

Best things about this back cover: 

• Like Proust's madeleine, only shamefuler
• So ... behind his hands ... is his heart? How did that happen? Henry Duncane, anatomical wonder!
• That last paragraph is weird. Is he hoping for a disaster? What disaster? Does he see the disaster in the night sky "beyond her?" Is it an asteroid? I hope it is an asteroid.

Page 123~

Nobody bathed in Thor Lake.

See, that should've been the title of the book. 

~RP

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Paperback 1158: Easy to Kill / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 319)

Paperback 1158: Pocket Books 319 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Easy to Kill

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Hawes

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• Wow, he really is easy to kill. Just tickle his clavicle and there he goes. Done for.
• Some of the worst hand art I've ever seen. That reaching left hand ... it's kind of a Fear Hand, but it's also a ghost hand, as well as a "my thumb in a mini-croissant" hand. Is he reaching for a light switch? Making shadow puppets? Scratching a blackboard in hopes that the sound will drive the devil away? A truly bizarre monstrosity.
• And that other hand isn't much better. It's more like a tree branch, or a really bloody mop.
• Love a clear artist's signature. There's not an artist credit, and I don't have a single Hawes in my collection, so I don't know what the first name is.
• For an 80-year-old book, this one is in remarkably good condition. Very minor warping and surface wear, but otherwise apparently unread.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh, "It's very easy to kill." I see. Now.
• So the title is Easy to Kill and the back cover tagline is "It's Very Easy to Kill" and the last line of the back cover blurb is "It's very easy to kill." I've got just one question: is killing hard? I hear it's hard.
• If I could kill people with "a special look," the bodies ... my god the bodies ... 

Page 123~

"I'm pretty good at taking care of myself too. Hard-boiled, I should think you'd call me."

No, I won't be doing that. If you have to tell people you're hard-boiled, odds are that you're no such thing.

~RP

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Paperback 1156: The Under Dog and Other Mysteries / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 1085)

Paperback 1156: Pocket Books 1085 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Under Dog and Other Mysteries

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: James Meese

Condition: 9/10

Value: $12

Best things about this cover: 

• Me after three drinks and five pelvic lifts.
• Whodunnit? My money's on the giant yellow rectangle.
• Just a great dead-man-spilling-toward-the-foreground image here from James Meese. 
• On second thought, I don't think he's actually dead; I think he just got drunk and walked smack into the yellow rectangle. 
• I cannot figure out what the standing man is doing (besides looking suspicious)? He seems to be smoking a cigarette with his left hand but also holding what looks like a pipe (but is not a pipe) in his right hand? What is he holding? It's driving me nuts. [reader opinion is that he’s holding a lighter; I can live with that]
• I like how the lady combines Fear Hand with a kind of sexy hands-on-hips pose. Fear Hand, but make it shimmy.
• This book is in spooky-good condition. It's got some surface wear but otherwise it's square, sharp-edged and shiny.

Best things about this back cover: 

• That is possibly the most dramatic "For example..." in the history of the written word.
• I have questions about Submarines A through Y.
• "And in The King of Clubs Hercule Poirot's knowledge of bridge makes him even more insufferable than usual." No wonder the police are still looking for an answer—they probably couldn't bear to sit through his tedious explanation. 

Page 123~

"Think of that solid middle-class English family, the Oglanders."

I will not. You can't make me. Furthermore, if you're going to invent a family name, try to come up with something more plausible than the Oglanders. Next you'll be talking about the Blabfasters and the Foozengibbets and then where will we be? In a Dr. Seuss book, that's where?

~RP

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Paperback 1153: A Murder Is Announced / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 820)

Paperback 1153: Pocket Books 820 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Murder Is Announced

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Frank McCarthy

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10    

Best things about this cover: 

• When your CPR compressions are *way* too hard...
• Lady looks like she's competing in some kind of haunted house biathlon, and losing
• Dead guy's right hand is gonna haunt my dreams for days. I count five fingers, but somehow it looks like seven

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ah, the classified ads. I miss those. People advertising help wanted, selling furniture, announcing murders. The good old days.
• Pretty close to Halloween to being going to strange women's houses. Particularly strange women named Letitia Blacklock. Oh, did the lights go out? Were you "locked" in "blackness"? What did you expect to happen!? 
• God bless Pocket Books for the artist credit. Love an artist credit. Hate having to track artists down (or, worse, and more common, not being able to find out who did the art at all)

Page 123~

"If you'd been up against it, and then, rather like a shivering stray cat, you'd found a home and cream and a warm stroking hand and you were called Pretty Pussy and somebody thought the world of you ... You'd do a lot to keep that ..."

Boy, would I. You got that right.

~RP

P.S. My long winter hiatus is over. Gonna try to stick to a regular T/Th publishing sched. for the foreseeable future, with possible weekend posts if I have the time. Thank you to loyal readers. Tell a friend! xo

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Paperback 1151: The Body in the Library / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 341)

Paperback 1151: Pocket Books 341 (3rd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Body in the Library

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8.5/10

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• People say she's crazy, she's got diamonds on the ... what is that, the lap of her dress?
• The sparkly bits are actually gorgeous, though this poor woman has fallen in a rather unbecoming way. More abstract shape than human form. The absolutely ridiculous wig-hair is not helping (if you look at the image upside-down, it looks even sillier, like her wig is sliding back off her scalp)
• Condition on this book is fantastic. Slight spine lean, and maybe a little spine fading, but otherwise the book is bright. Immaculate. The perma-gloss is intact and everything.

Best things about this back cover: 

• If the cover is making you a little seasick because everything's a little ... tilty, that's because of a printing anomaly. Sometimes with early paperbacks the printing, particularly on covers, is not perfectly square or centered. I find it charming. 
• "Hearthrug" is a weird-looking word. Like three words fighting to be the main word and all of them somehow losing.
• I don't know what color that "backless evening dress" is on the cover, but it ain't white.
• I love the idea that a dead body on a hearthrug looks merely "incongruous" in the Colonel's library. "Her corpse clashes with the escritoire. Oh, no, this won't do at all."

Page 123~

    Florence looked uneasily at Miss Marple. Her eyes looked rather like those of one of her father's calves.

    Miss Marple said, "Sit down, Florence."

~RP

Oh my god is Miss Marple gonna slaughter her. "We were supposed to have veal for dinner this evening, Florence, but your father has no more calves available. Which brings us to the question of why I've brought you here..."

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Paperback 1150: The Hollow / Agatha Christie (Pocket Books 485)

Paperback 1150: Pocket Books 485 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: The Hollow

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10

[Still more Agatha Christie from this summer, Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• She criticized his taste in statuary once too often!
• She criticized his Brylcrem obsession once too often!
• "Hold still, darling, while I smother you in THE HOLLOW of my neck"
• Man they are really doing battle for "worst hair."
• Huh. It doesn't look like he "inspires dangerous passion" so much as he "lavishes unwanted attention on women such that they are inspired to drive knitting needles into his neck."
• What are those things in her hand, anyway? I honestly have no guess. Part knitting needles part riding crop part busted umbrella. Whatever it is, I assume she's about to plant it right in his cherubic face.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Most accusations "for all to hear" are not "whispered," in my admittedly limited experience of guys dying near swimming pools.
• This is a pretty weak teaser. Also, a truly unnecessary explanation of what Hercule Poirot is going to do. "Oh, is he going to ask questions and gain insight into the character of suspects!? How novel!"
• I'm no legal scholar, but I'm pretty sure that a detective cannot "convict the guilty one."

Page 123~

"Oh, Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell, "about those eggs. I meant to write the date in pencil on them as usual. Will you ask Mrs. Medway to see to it?"

This book is truly committed to insane names. Gerda and Gudgeon and Angkatell, and then of course there's Henrietta: "Henrietta Savernake [!] — a talented sculptress who sometimes cheats at cards" (per the "Cast of Characters"). As long as one of them writes the damn date on the damn eggs, I'm sure everything will be fine.

~RP

P.S. sorry for the two-week hiatus. Surgery + a cold + a threefold increase in teaching responsibilities really put me back on my heels. But I'm back at it now, 2-3x week for the foreseeable future.

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Paperback 1129: The Postman Always Rings Twice / James M. Cain (Pocket Books 443)

 Paperback 1129: Pocket Books 443 (11th ptg., 1953)

Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice

Author: James M. Cain

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

Best things about this cover: 

• Love their faces! "Fraaank ... you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Oh yeah, baby, it's murder city for hubby there. I got a foolproof plan..."
• This cover really gets across the idea that her husband is dragging her down. Physically, literally down. He's like a horny aging hell-imp come to besmirch the pure white maiden (that white is about to become superironic). Anyway, big diagonal energy in this one (from the glass on the table through the handsy Greek up through Miss Innocent and smack into Frank's cigarette-stuffed mug).
• Look at Frank there. He's like a tree. Just a straight up-and-down piece of solid wood. Actually, he seems to be emerging from a block of granite. He's got meaty hands, strangler's hands. But that t-shirt ... that's kinda jaunty. What is that, mint green? Snazzy.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Meh, this book's trying too hard to be highbrow. Quotes from Important Sources and whatnot. Where's my florid, sleazy cover copy!? Do you think I really care what [squints] Herbert Bayard Swope has to say? I do not.
• I can't believe no one calls this story "Frank," as it literally has a "Frank" in it.
• What is "the metal of an automatic?" Is he trying to say "gun?" The "bullets?" Which part of the automatic isn't metal? And can you really not lay a gun down? Sorry, Saturday Review of Literature, you're not up to the task here. Maybe go back to reviewing Louis Bromfield or John P. Marquand or whatever.

Page 123~ (actually, p. 23 ... there's only 121 pages total in this thing!)

    "Even if we had gone through with it they would have guessed it. They always guess it. They guess it anyway, just from habit. Because look how quick that cop knew something was wrong. That's what makes my blood run cold. Soon as he saw me standing there he knew it. If he could tumble to it all that easy, how much chance would we have had if the Greek had died?"

    "I guess I'm not really a hell cat, Frank."

It's a sad day when a girl has to give up on her childhood dreams of being a hell cat. But we all have to grow up sometime, I guess. 

~RP

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Paperback 1128: Walls of Gold / Kathleen Norris (Pocket Books 488)

Paperback 1128: Pocket Books 488 (1st ptg., 1948)

Title: Walls of Gold

Author: Kathleen Norris

Cover artist: Earl Cordrey

Condition: 5/10

Value: $4-5

Best things about this cover: 

• She liked to make every new lover smell the blood of his predecessor. "How did you get his bl-?" "Shut up and smell, Steve. Then help me scrape the words off these walls of gold."
• I thought there was a speck of dirt on her right shoulder but it won't come off so maybe it's a mole?
• She married for position. And that's how she became left tackle for the Chicago Bears.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "... an elderly widower who gave her all the good things of life"—well, apparently not all the good things
• Three hypothetical questions on one back cover. That's asking (literally) a lot of the reader
• Wait, the rich guy is named "Ritchie?" I can't wait to meet Jimmy's other love interests, architect Sam Houseman and butcher Steve Mietz

Page 123~

Jimmy, who had to write all the notes of thanks, observed that some day they would build a beautiful home somewhere and put their new things into it. But Gordon was a little dubious about that. 

Jimmy, who could brook no dubiousness, quickly slit her new husband's throat, cleaned up the blood with a handkerchief, and then descended the staircase to show Steve what she'd done.

~RP

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Paperback 1119: The Baroness #4: Hard-core Murder / Paul Kenyon (Pocket Books 77918)

Paperback ___: Publisher number (PBO, 1974)

Title: The Baroness #4: Hard-core Murder

Author: Paul Kenyon

Cover artist: Uncredited [Hector Garrido]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $25

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• The kind of book where I take one look at it and I'm like "yup!" No hesitation. Redhead in a bodysuit karates ancient Romans and their tigers? I'm in. Even when I (eventually) noticed that the action seems to be taking place on a movie set—still in.
• Pink. This book is very pink. I mean, Pink. 
• I cannot tell you how badly I need Baronesses numbers 1 through 3. 
• The Sexy Superspy who entertained the crew by making shadow puppets with her giant spatula hands!

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Makes the scene!" Nobody "makes the scene" anymore. Real loss to the culture, imho. I mean, I get that it's a movie pun, but still ... people used to "make the scene" and now they don't and we are all the poorer for it.
• Yes, I paid $7.50 for this. As you can see, it's "worth" a bit more (based on prices at abebooks). Not that I really care that much. 
• Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini! That's ... quite a name. My wife is named "Penelope." I don't think I could get her to wear that outfit, but I'm gonna start calling her "Baroness" and see what happens.
• A porn film that will bring down the American government, eh? I don't think anyone's tried that one yet. Whatever it takes!
• "Sully Flick" was born Sensual Motion Picture IV but thought it sounded too aristocratic for the movie biz so here we are.

Page 123~

Frankie found his favorite place, the table near the display of leather-and-chain books, that had all the real hot stuff on it. It was very educational.

~RP

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Paperback 1107: The Razor's Edge / W. Somerset Maugham (Pocket Books 418)

 Paperback 1107: Pocket Books 418 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Razor's Edge

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Cover artist: [Uncredited]

Condition: 6/10

Value: $7

Best things about this cover: 

• He touched her face. It was just as he suspected—whiskers! Steve knew right then that before he could make Janie his bride, her face would need to experience ... The Razor's Edge!
• Tonight, Janie decided, she would end things. Steve had coochie-coochie-coo'd her chin for the last time!
• This cover is back from when Pocket Books was still trying to make their books look serious and literary, i.e. boring. I would've sent this back to the art director with a simple three-word note: "Too Much Sky!"
• I love the insane specificity of Pocket Books's numbering scheme from this era. Individually numbered books—what was the appeal supposed to be!? They coulda just gone with the "Millions and Millions Sold" thing like McDonald's and that would've probably done the trick. What was I supposed to feel upon purchasing the one hundred and fifty-eight million two hundred and twelve thousand three hundred and tenth Pocket Book? Elation? Ennui? I can't exactly collect all the ones I'm missing! Ridiculous.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The permagloss is gone, the book is grimy, and abrasions have left part of the back cover copy illegible. Yet the spine is tight and nearly square and the book opens and reads easily. This is a perfect reading copy, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it's not.
• I think I read Maugham's Of Human Bondage once, around the time I was in college, because my friend claimed it was his favorite novel. I mean, I assume it actually was his favorite novel, why would he lie? Anyway, I don't remember the book. And I've never read any other Maugham. All I know about this book (The Razor's Edge) is that there was a movie version starring Bill Murray that came out some time in the '80s, and that (famously?) flopped. Apparently there's also a Tyrone Power / Gene Tierney version. That sounds hot.
• What also sounds hot? Frustrated widows, lusty beauties, and complete degradation. I might have to put this on my reading list (which is infinity books long already, but who knows!? I might get to it someday).

Page 123~

I couldn't help smiling. I could imagine what Larry had looked like then, in his patched shirt and shorts, his face and neck burnt brown by the hot sun of the Rhine valley, with his lithe slim body and his black eyes in their deep sockets. I could well believe that the sight of him set the matronly Frau Becker, so blond, so full-breasted, all of a flutter with desire.

That's some pretty specific, pretty carnal imagining you're doing there, buddy. Are you sure it's Frau Becker who's "all of a flutter with desire"? 

~RP

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Paperback 1085: Frenchman's Creek / Daphne du Maurier (Pocket Books 50078)

 Paperback 1085: Pocket Books 50078 (6th ptg, 1964)

Title: Frenchman's Creek

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Cover artist: [Mort Engle?] [Uncredited]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

[Riverow Books, Owego, NY, May 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• When they're underpaying you for your artwork and you're like, "Fuck it, I'm making this one 65% white bedsheet. You want naked ladies and piratical finery, Pay Me!"
• Even the cover copy writer seems to be quiet-quitting: "Let's see. How 'bout: 'This is a novel about this kind of person and that kind of person'? ... yeah, that's good, lunchtime."
• What the hell is on her head. He's got the classic pirate kerchief, but she ... I don't know what she has. Some kind of feathered headdress. It's like she's on a Vegas showgirl on a quick break. "Ma chérie, can't you take off this silly h—" "Can it, Pierre, I've only got 15 minutes, let's do this!"
• I want this cover to be by Mort Engle, only because I can see a signature on the far left side, on the edge of the bed, that kinda looks like "Engle." It's not exactly his style, but it is his general era. Most of his stuff doesn't have a visible signature, though, so ... maybe not. [UPDATE: it’s probably the work of artist James Neil Boyle. (signatures match)]

Best things about this back cover: 

• LOL "fat and stupid husband," yes, do not mince words, drag him!
• Mmm, lonely and mysterious Cornwall estate. Peak Gothic locale.
• Whoa, she actually becomes a pirate! Livin' outside the "bounds of convention and propriety!" Atta girl!

Page 123~

The foolish wager of the wig came to her mind, and she realized then that the Frenchman must have known that Godolphin would be staying with Philip Rashleigh in Fowey that night, and that side by side with the capture of the ship he had planned the seizing of Godolphin's wig.

OK, first of all, that "Godolphin" / "Philip Rashleigh" / "Fowey" trifecta had me howling with fanciful historical-romance name overload, and second of all, how is this novel not called The Seizing of Godolphin's Wig. Something should be called The Seizing of Godolphin's Wig. It's a Restoration-era sex farce at the very least.

~RP

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Paperback 1081: The Case of the Fenced-In Woman / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 77884)

Paperback 1081: Pocket Books 77884 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: TCOT Fenced-In Woman

Author: Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10 (slight spine lean, some dings and dirtiness, kinda what you expect a book like this to look like)

Value: $6-8

[Binghamton Public Library Book Sale, May 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• My wife got me this as a present from the local library book sale. Did not expect to reboot this blog with Ancient Chest-Shaving Rituals but you get what you get.
• "Now sweetheart, you know that's not a safe way to eat frosting, we've talked about this..." "DON'T FENCE ME IN, HAL!"
• Perry Mason Solves ... The Case of the Shirtless Dermatologist! "I don't like the look of this mole on your cheek, Sally. And your upper thigh feels suspicious, too. I'm gonna have to operate. Be a good girl and give me back my scalpel."
• Perry Mason Solves ... The Case of the Man with the Blurry Feet! (spoiler alert: his feet were hideous so the publishers blurred them)

Best things about this back cover: 

• My brain reading this back cover: "blah blah blah SUBURBAN SPANKING!? Awesome!"
• "Morley Eden said," is literature. It is art. It is a poem, the damnedest poem you ever heard.
• "Snaky gowns that cling like the skin on a sausage" is the kind of thing they send you back to Simile School for. "You're trying to convey 'sexy,' right? "Sexy, yeah, sexy." "And 'snaky,' that's OK, that kinda gets you there." "Yeah, gets me there, gets me there..." "But 'skin on a sausage'..." "Yeah?" "Well it's..." "Hot!?" "No, I don't think—" "Wait, wait. Let me explain. See, the chicks are the sausage, which is delicious, right, and..."

Page 123~

"You came over here in a hurry, didn't you, Mason?" Tragg asked.

"I do many things in a hurry."

"Did you just wink at me, Mason?" Tragg asked, his uniform clinging like the skin on a sausage...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and BlueSky]

Paperback 1076: Professional Lover / Maysie Greig (Pocket Books 541)

Paperback 1076: Pocket Books 541 (1st ptg, 1948)

Title: Professional Lover

Author: Maysie Greig

Cover artist: "Front cover photograph by Halleck (!?) Finley"

Condition: 6/10

Value: $4-7

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I know it's a weird place to start, but her top is *amazing*. Zebra stampede!
• The perfect horizontal line from the top her head to the tip ofer her elbow, also amazing.
• I know "Making love to women is his job" sounds saucy, but it's 1948 so ... not so much (it just means he's a heartthrob movie star, sorry to disappoint).
• Dude is a dead ringer for Rock Hudson. I mean, if you ignore the rubberized hair piece, what the hell...
• I wonder how long they had to hold this pose. So much close breathing. Plus, his (giant!) hand looks like it's really working.
• The couch / wall color combo is particularly unappetizing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dang, his lips are really going to town, maybe this will be hotter than I thought
• Rex Brandon, I buy. Starr Thayle, I buy less.
• Cover copy writers still using clunky phrases like "had been accorded," that's how you know you're still in the '40s. Although "crashing climax" and "flaming tale" (!!) show promise.
• Halleck? That's a fish, not a name.

Page 123~

All afternoon they had been taking and retaking a couple of scenes on the yacht. Rex couldn't get them to Stephen's satisfaction. Almost as though Stephen derived a grim satisfaction in making the great Rex Brandon go over and over a certain take.

I would love to have a funny take here, but once again the editor in me is like "Why are there two 'satisfaction's in here? Do you not hear the repetition? Does it not jar your eardrums?" Copywriter: "Well, if my writing is not to your satisf-" Me: "Stop." Copywriter: "It's just that satisf-" Me: "Say 'Satisfaction' Again, M*****F*****! I dare you."

~RP

[Follow Pop Sensation on Instagram @popsensationpaperbacks]

Paperback 1071: Perilous Passage / Arthur Mayse (Pocket Books 727)

Paperback 1071: Pocket Books 727 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Perilous Passage

Author: Arthur Mayse

Cover artist: James Bingham

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Reader Larry D. just sent me a whole box of choice paperbacks. Out of the goodness of his heart. In the interest of, let's say, science! I am over the moon. We will all be the beneficiaries of his generosity, as I showcase books from his donation in the coming weeks, starting with today's stunner—a chaotic close-up composition featuring nautical mayhem and what appears to be a pretty severe case of mal de mer. Or maybe that guy just swooned. Maybe he's afraid. Can we call that hand on his brow a "Fear Hand"? I think we can. I think I will.
• "How was I to know when I broke my boat mirror that my luck would turn so bad...?"
• The gunwoman here seems like a plucky, take-charge kind of gal, I love her. The gun looks a little warped or wonky somehow, but her face! It's all business. I would not f*** with someone making that face.
• I like how you have to kind of sit with this painting for a while to figure just what the hell is going on, which way is up, who's doing what, etc. It really ... unfolds, the more you look at it. 
• Just noticed that my man appears to be tickling her underboob, which is a funny thing to do when your life is in danger, but people cope with stress in all kinds of ways, who am I to judge?

Best things about this back cover:

• typewriter font...
• "Clint half-slid"—classic sap behavior: always half-sliding, never all-the-way sliding. Commit to something, for once in your life, Clint!
• This book should be titled Bring Me The Head of Clint Farrell!
• Devvy! Wow now I love her more. It's like the Devil and a Chevy had a gun-wielding baby!

Page 123~

"Nuts!" Clint told her. "Look, come down or I'm coming up. All you need is a banana in your fist."

Sure, Clint has a pretty limited, primarily food-based vocabulary, but what a charmer! Feel free to use the line, "Is that a banana in your fist, or are you just glad to see me?" next time the occasion seems to warrant it. [I should add that I almost abandoned Page 123 for Page 122, the first words of which are, "... sucked the boom stick down by its butt ..."]

~RP

[Follow Pop Sensation on Instagram @popsensationpaperbacks]

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 1030: Damon Runyon Favorites / Damon Runyon (Pocket Books 158)

Paperback 1030: Pocket Books 158 (1st ptg, 1942)

Title: Damon Runyon Favorites
Author: Damon Runyon
Cover artist: criminally uncredited [Frank J. Lieberman]

Condition: 8.5/10
Estimated value: $20

Best things about this cover:

• You guys it's just so beautiful. I don't really have much to say. It just evokes a whole era, a magical place and time, as seen through the haze of nostalgia. It's So Soft.
• The orange is wonderfully bright. These early Pocket Books are rarely this nice, with the colors unfaded and the Permagloss largely intact (just the tiniest bits of pull-away on some of the edges). Not perfectly square, but perfectly tight. Pages are practically bone white. Not sure it's been read at all.
• That cab!
• I want to go to Mindy's *right now*.

Best things about this back cover:

• Master Of The Main Stem! (!) (!?) (!!??)
• I wonder when "according to Walter Winchell" stopped working.
• Runyon is such an important popularizer of the colloquial speech and lowbrow slang that dominated mid-century crime fiction. Colorful New York characters. Big False Face! BFF!

Page 123~ (from "Sense of Humor")

"Why," he says, "do not you hear the news about Rosa? She takes the wind on me a couple of months ago for my friend Frankie Ferocious, and is living in an apartment over in Brooklyn, right near his house, although," Joe says, "of course you understand I am telling you this only to answer your question, and not to holler copper on Rosa."

Joe the Joker doesn't want to holler copper because Rosa spends money like nobody's business and Frankie is about to find out how expensive she is. Dames!

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]