There are a lot of late-stage sleaze novels from Midwood Books, which went out of business around 1980 (Wikipedia says 1968, but it's wrong). We chose to read Will Rudd's 1978 romp Joy Ride for one reason—the cover features Swedish model Anita Hemmings, aka Annika Salmonsson, who we have upcoming on a rare headshop poster from 1972. Sadly, the book is a poorly written, overly long, raunchy but heatless story about a chump named Pollack whose cross country trip takes many strange turns.

But there is one point of interest: the cast of characters includes a couple named Harry and Meg. Harry is fair-skinned, while Meg is a “little lighter than her hair,” which is “tan and long.” Weird, right? They don't otherwise bear any resemblance to the royal couple, but still, you get unprompted visuals to accompany moments like: Meg, who'd opened her eyes and was beholding the world through semen-smeared glasses, felt Harry's cock swell gallantly in her mouth. It was worth a chuckle, but don't let it lure you. The book is really, really horrible. 

The answer to all of the above questions is: It's a women-in-prison novel. There are variations with these, though. The warden might might favor a sharp tongue over a riding crop. The temperature might be warm to encourage stripping, or cool to encourage sleeping in huddled groups. In all cases, however, the cavity searches last way longer than needed to find secreted contraband. Mike Avallone later went on to write some reputable books, but he'll always be remembered for his sleaze, especially this one and his all-time classic Sex Kitten. You can get more of an idea what the book is about from the rear cover, just below. We've read enough of these novels to satisfy our curiosity, so we took a pass on this one.

Above: the immediately identifiable work of the great Paul Rader fronting Russell Trainer's His Daughter's Friend. This is about a widower who gets into deep, deep trouble with a predatory teen. It came in 1964, after another book along the same lines, Wade Miller's famed Kitten with a Whip. Neither were among the first novels of their type. We'd guess the basic idea of adult-and-teen disaster goes back to the beginning of commercial publishing. The few we've read—aside from Lolita—feature girls above the age of consent back in 1964, and we bet that's the case here too. Those who don't read vintage books might suspect that such behavior is condoned, but it isn't—the entire point of these tales is that the men throw away or almost throw away everything, including their jobs, families, and freedom. We won't know exactly what His Daughter's Friend is about until we buy it, which we'll do, but not at two-hundred-plus dollars. That's the ask at the moment, and it's way too high. But someone will put it online at a reasonable price eventually. They almost always do.

This uncredited cover for Jackson Harmon's Night Spot, 1966, for Midwood Books, is another example that fits our cocktail tease collection. As there are hundreds of such covers out there, expect the set to keep growing indefinitely. Or at least until we run out of dumb quips. 

Midwood Books had a near-monopoly on artist Paul Rader, and good thing, because the guy was brilliant. His cover for the sleaze novel Strictly Business features an amusing tableau of a dapper businessman chatting with his leering colleague, as a coy beauty sits nearby.

The cover blurb is a little deceptive. The husband in this tale is actually the first to cheat, which drives his wife to do the same, first sampling some same-sex sweetness, then bedding down with her hubbie's hated rival. While the husband has an affair to help his business, his wife cheats in retaliation. When the husband encourages her to use her wiles to help him seal a deal, she leaves him. End of book. So the cover text is not on target. Not only that, but the rear synopsis makes up a scenario that never occurs at any point. Such are the hazards of sleaze novels, but this one is still a pretty fun read. Midwood was top of the genre for good reason.

We read Jason Hytes' 1962 sleaze novel Come One-Come All in electronic form, and thanks to a glitch in the page count we had no idea how long it was. Which led to the moment when we thought to ourselves, “This is getting interesting,” swiped to the next page and were confronted with the words—The End. By that page the book's lead character Barbara Martin had succumbed to her own sexual voracity, progressed to random seductions with both sexes, reached the point of being lured into prostitution, and dealt with the decision working out not well at all. And by not well at all we mean really not well. So while unknowingly swiping to The End, we were anticipating the commencement of bloody retribution by Barbara against the tale's villain. Nope. Barbara has learned her lesson and moves on. And so have we. But we'll say this much—for the genre, Hytes is not a bad writer.