MORTGAGE YOUR SOUL

Don't be so dramatic. It's not evil. Overpriced for this area, yes. Evil, no.

You see here the front and rear covers for House of Evil, a thriller published in 1954 and written by the wife/husband team of Clayre and Michel Lipman (you’ll see them as Clayre and Michael on some sites, but that’s an incorrect spelling of his name). It’s a crime novel, but horror-adjacent as the plot develops. Basically, it deals with an everyman named Roman Laird who gets tangled up in a macabre mystery when he walks into a murder scene in his girlfriend’s San Francisco apartment. His girlfriend is out of town, so the initial elements of the puzzle are: why kill in her apartment, and did the killer get who he was really after?

When the body seems to vanish, only to reappear, the puzzle deepens. As Laird begins to feel observed and the killer goes after another woman, answers continue to be in short supply. The few uncertain eyewitnesses are unhelpful with identification. Later Laird and the police uncover a set of oil paintings depicting terrors such as women hung upside down on hooks and strange beasts assaulting terrified victims. The Lipmans don’t make direct comparisons to existing artists, so the choice of what the art looks like is up to the reader’s imagination. People often go to Bosch or Goya when it comes to dark art, but we decided the paintings probably looked like those of Francis Bacon. In any case, the riddle in the story is what they might mean.

House of Evil is bold, and it’s well written and interesting, however because iterations of the book’s central gimmick have appeared quite a bit since 1954 (click only if you want to find out about a book—and movie—with an identical twist), you may guess what’s happening a few chapters in. That’s no fault of the Lipmans, but it means for modern readers that the mystery may not scintillate, the ending may feel too drawn out, and the final shocker may not hold sufficient impact. But even so, it’s a deft, dark, deeply psychological, outside-the-box thriller. We had to appreciate it.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,300 stars.

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.

1969—Allende Meteorite Falls in Mexico

The Allende Meteorite, the largest object of its type ever found, falls in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The original stone, traveling at more than ten miles per second and leaving a brilliant streak across the sky, is believed to have been approximately the size of an automobile. But by the time it hit the Earth it had broken into hundreds of fragments.

1985—Matt Munro Dies

English singer Matt Munro, who was one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s and sang numerous hits, including the James Bond theme “From Russia with Love,” dies from liver cancer at Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London.

1958—Plane Crash Kills 8 Man U Players

British European Airways Flight 609 crashes attempting to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane is the Manchester United football team, along with a number of supporters and journalists. 20 of the 44 people on board die in the crash.

Five covers for football pulp magazines illustrated by George Gross.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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