SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR HIM

He tried a lot of strangling strings before he found the best one for the job.

Strangled with their own g-strings? They must have made them sturdier in the past, because we’ve known g-strings to snap very easily. We think it’s something to do with their thin cores. Over time it stopped fazing us and we were able to finish songs without batting an eye even if the g-string broke. Don’t quote us on this, but the sequel to this book was, we think, The Sax Reed Murders. Sax reeds are an even more challenging musical item with which to commit crime, though a distant second place compared to the bagpipe squeaker. Okay, we’ll stop. We’re being silly now. Actually, we were silly from the beginning. We mean the entire website, not this post.

We said we’d buy Gypsy Rose Lee’s second mystery novel Mother Finds a Body, but we haven’t yet, so instead we’re sharing an alternate cover for her first. Originally published in 1941 by Simon & Schuster as The G-String Murders, we showed you a Pocket Books edition from 1947. The above edition came from Great Pan in 1959, retitled The Striptease Murders. We love it. You got your noir blinds, your femme fatale, great colors, and—oh right—a schvitzing psycho. The art is signed De Marco, a person who in real life was Gerald Facey. We’ve seen a few other pieces from him, so we’ll try to circle back later.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1941—Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor

The Imperial Japanese Navy sends aircraft to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its defending air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While the U.S. lost battleships and other vessels, its aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor and survived intact, robbing the Japanese of the total destruction of the Pacific Fleet they had hoped to achieve.

1989—Anti-Feminist Gunman Kills 14

In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.
The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.
Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.

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