Paperback 1096: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M-3043)

Paperback 1096: Perma Books M-3043 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Red Harvest

Author: Dashiell Hammett

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 8/10

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• More like Red Housecoat! Just an amazing garment.
• "Say 'candy cane' again. I dare you. I double dare you, motherfucker. Say 'candy cane' one more goddamn time!"
• The geometry of this interaction is mesmerizing. The hand triangle! Her left hand and her right cross and his "fear hand"—so much intense hand drama. Plus that look of complete contempt on her face ... god bless you, Lou Marchetti, king among cover artists!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Not sure whose idea it was to put the "-DER" over the "WHO-" but it was not a good one.
• This is a fairly succinct and vivid account of a thing that actually happens in the book. It does make me want to read the book. Nothing fancy going on back here, but in terms of drumming up interest in the story, mission accomplished.
• I miss laudanum. And ice picks. Do people still do laudanum and kill with ice picks? Inebriation and murder were just *better* in the old days, man.

Page 123~

    "Reno and his mob were in the can. Reno was Yard's pup, but he didn't mind crossing up his head-man. He already had the idea that he was about ready to take the berg away from Lew." I turned to Reno and asked: "Isn't that it?"

    He looked at me woodenly and said: "You're telling it."

    I continued telling it. 

I love how much Hammett loves hardboiled slang. Always got the tough-guy patter down pat. This is what makes Hammett so enthralling—a great ear for dialogue, which makes the whole criminal scene feel dramatic and authentic. 

~RP

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Paperback 411: Modesty Blaise / Peter O'Donnell (Fawcett/Crest R899)

Paperback 411: Fawcett/Crest R899 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: Modesty Blaise
Author: Peter O'Donnell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• I challenge the spy-worthiness of those boots. Everything else is sleek and pragmatic (even the pile of hair, which could be hiding, I don't know, throwing stars or a bottle opener or something), but those heels wouldn't last 10 seconds in Abbottabad.
• She has the look of a McGinnis girl, but there's something ... not quite right. A lifelessness. I mean, I usually think McGinnis girls look a little dead-eyed, but they have a certain something that pops. This woman doesn't have it.
• This is a movie tie-in paperback. Movie is apparently a kind of spoof of spy movies. The "Modesty Blaise" franchise is weird. Starts in comics (as a female alternative to 007), and blows up from there.
• As for the background—looks like something borrowed from a kindergarten classroom. What the hell?

Best things about this back cover:

• Her expression in that second drawing. Is she flipping a man and singing "My Prerogative" at the same time? Impressive.
• Wow, this cover copy is leaden. Not campy, not funny, not outlandish—just predictable and stupid.
• "Dirk Bogarde" will now be added to my long list of potential aliases.

Page 123~

"Yet she's all woman," Hagan said, and felt his loins throb with sudden memory of her.

I don't think that's quite how loins work. Even a 16-yr-old isn't going to go from zero to "throb" at the speed of thought.

~RP

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Paperback 332: The Cruel Dawn / Alfred Viazzi (Popular Library 440)

Paperback 332: Popular Library 440 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Cruel Dawn
Author: Alfred Viazzi
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "I said, I'm gonna wash that gray right out of your hair! Hold still!"
• "Demon, I cast thee out!"
• Gloria liked to end every dance with a vicious take-down.
• Normally I find things like garter belts and cleavage quite hot, but between the dowdiness of that nightgown and the oddly porcelain quality of this woman's skin, this lady just isn't doing it for me. Also, maybe it's just me, but she seems a bit standoffish.

Best things about this back cover:

• Her body is blonde? That's more info than you usually get in an opening description.
• Oooh, a "lusty bordello." Not one of those Puritanical bordellos you see from time to time. Those are sooo annoying.
• A decent, non-wanton actress would, of course, have taken the time to get properly dressed before shielding a man with her body. Pfft. Whore.

Page 123~

The last thing he remembered was the thud and pain of a boot kicking hard into the side of his head.

~RP

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Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

• Contains: "A World of His Own" by Robert Silverberg and "Tracking Level" by Harlan Ellison
• Cover artist: Ed Valigursky

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• In the future, "Deal or No Deal" is a lot more interesting.
• I'm pretty sure those ladies were not born ladies - it's nice to see that, in the future, transsexual and transgendered people will have steady work as game show hostesses
• Man, that guy really wants to kill Howie Mandel. But then who doesn't?
• This picture does not make it appear as if "Women Were His Pawns." Unless he's forcing them to act out some adolescent fantasy of his - I guess that's possible

Best things about this back cover:

• I own one of these books!
• Never before has the word "ANY" looked so exciting
• If you don't look closely, you can almost miss the flying saucer mountain scape in the background
• Love the unnecessary quotation marks around "top drawer" - do not love the quotation marks that open with "Handsome ... and then never close. Spine-tingling!
• Ad copy always hyphenates "science-fiction," while the book covers themselves Never do. Eeeeerie.
• I love how specific they are about the amount I would normally be paying ... "$8.65, you say ... oh my."

Page 123~

[click image to enlarge]

• "Would you ... become a peeping tom?" - they really know their audience, I think
• The "Space Club" appears to be a kind of asexual personals section for the Nerdiest People On Earth.

~RP