HELPING HANDS

99% of the time having backwards arms is terrible. But being able to do this brings a smile to my face.


This weird cover caught our eye for obvious reasons. And as guys who have to help our girlfriends get their necklaces on nearly every day, we sometimes wonder if they’d trade their normal arms for a pair of backwards ones. With backwards arms the girls could also give themselves back rubs, which seems to be one of our primary functions. Seriously. One of our girlfriends literally walks in the room pointing at her own lats, which is semaphore for “back rub time.” Anyway, British author Hugh Clevely, who also wrote as Tod Claymore, produced this entry in the Sexton Blake Library, and the eponymous Blake—in case you aren’t familiar with him—is basically an ingenious sleuth patterned after Sherlock Holmes, but with a tendency toward duelling to deal with his enemies. The character was immensely popular and eventually appeared on stage, radio, on television, and in movies. The Strange Affair of the Widow’s Diamond’s was published in 1955. 

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1948—Paige Takes Mound in the Majors

Satchel Paige, considered at the time the greatest of Negro League pitchers, makes his Major League debut for the Cleveland Indians at the age of 42. His career in the majors is short because of his age, but even so, as time passes, he is recognized by baseball experts as one of the great pitchers of all time.

1965—Biggs Escapes the Big House

Ronald Biggs, a member of the gang that carried out the Great Train Robbery in 1963, escapes from Wandsworth Prison by scaling a 30-foot wall with three other prisoners, using a ladder thrown in from the outside. Biggs remains at large for nearly forty years.

1949—Dragnet Premiers

NBC radio broadcasts the cop drama Dragnet for the first time. It was created by, produced by, and starred Jack Webb as Joe Friday. The show would later go on to become a successful television program, also starring Webb.

1973—Lake Dies Destitute

Veronica Lake, beautiful blonde icon of 1940s Hollywood and one of film noir’s most beloved fatales, dies in Burlington, Vermont of hepatitis and renal failure due to long term alcoholism. After Hollywood, she had drifted between cheap hotels in Brooklyn and New York City and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A New York Post article briefly revived interest in her, but at the time of her death she was broke and forgotten.

1962—William Faulkner Dies

American author William Faulkner, who wrote acclaimed novels such as Intruder in the Dust and The Sound and the Fury, dies of a heart attack in Wright’s Sanitorium in Byhalia, Mississippi.

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.
Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.
Uncredited cover art for Orrie Hitt's 1954 novel Tawny. Hitt was a master of sleazy literature and published more than one hundred fifty novels.
George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

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