Novels set in South Florida and the Keys are basically a sub-genre of popular literature today, but Theodore Pratt was one of the earlier writers to continually set his work there, using the area for thirty-five novels. Mercy Island involves a group—local captain, youthful crewman, hard-headed sportsman, and beautiful wife—who are stranded  on a deserted island when their fishing boat runs aground. But the island isn't empty. It's occupied by a man with a criminal past who has been hiding out there to dodge the law. As tensions rise and food runs short it becomes less clear who is the real danger to the group. Originally written in 1941, the book was immediately made into a hit movie starring Ray Middleton, Gloria Dickson, and Otto Kruger. This Dell paperback appeared in 1954 with uncredited cover art.

Like they teach you in driving class, look left, then right, then left again. Or is it the other way around? Whichever direction, you want to look a lot to avoid a potential fatality. More Beautiful than Murder tells the story of a man on trial for murder whose alibi is the testimony of his girlfriend, who was with him the night of the killing. Only one problem—he doesn't have a girlfriend and has never seen the woman on the witness stand before. But it all starts to make sense after he's acquitted and sucked into even more danger, including a few more killings. The main character is a guy named Steve Blake but the book is part of a series featuring author Octavus Roy Cohen's creation Lieutenant Marty Walsh. Originally serialized in Collier's magazine and published in 1948, this Popular Library paperback appeared in ’52, and the cover art, with its amazingly garbed Jane Russellian femme fatale, was painted by Rudolph Belarski.

Mexican pulp art has grown in popularity in recent years, thanks to the efforts of vendors and collectors. It differs from U.S. pulp in that it was produced decades later—during the 1970s and forward. The covers you see here today are prime examples of what is generally classified as Mexican pulp, made for the comic book series El libro policiaco, or "The Police Book," and published by Novedades Editores during the early 2000s. The series was so popular that, like the U.S. television show C.S.I., the books diversified into multiple cities—New Orleans, New York City, Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco. Each city's stories centered around a local police department staffed by a multi-ethnic array of cops and support personnel. And as the banner text proclaims, the interior art was indeed in color, ninety-two pages of it per issue. All the covers here were created by Jorge Aviña, an artist who began his career during the 1970s, and has had his work exhibited in London, Switzerland, Barcelona, and Paris. We'll have more from El libro policiaco a bit later.

A beautiful girl named Cherry Gordon who was abandoned by her birth mother and raised by adoptive parents gets into the porn racket, lets booze take over her life, runs afoul of the law, and even descends so far into depravity as to consort with lesbians. All this happens because she wants to be a singer and actress—so let it be a lesson never to follow your dreams. The story is written from Cherry's point of view, which is hilarious considering how little feel as a writer trashmaster deluxe Orrie Hitt has for women. But what does have plenty of feel is Paul Rader's cover for this 1963 Beacon Signal edition. No trash there.

Back in November of 2014 we shared a vanishingly rare tatekan style promo poster for Teruo Ishii’s Hijirimen bakuto, aka Red Silk Gambler. Today we’ve finally gotten around to sharing the other five matching tatekans, new to any website, and unwatermarked for your enjoyment. Though that may change soon. The stars of these posters are, top to bottom, Hiroko Fuji, Junko Matsudaira, Mitsue Horikoshi, Eiko Nakamura, and Sanae Tsuchida. By the way, IMDB calls this movie Hijirimen bakuto, but many other sources, especially those based in Japan, call it Hidirimen bakuto. As far as we know, both are technically correct, but maybe one of our Japanese speaking friends can confirm that. You can see our first write-up on this film here. 

Evangelina Elizondo was born in Mexico City and worked during the golden age of Mexican cinema, which was between 1936 and 1959, according to most sources. In addition to appearing in dozens of films, she recorded a couple of albums, wrote a couple of books, and remains active today, at least online. The above photo, with its striking noir style and leaning pose that has to be more difficult than it looks, dates from around 1955.