 Guys, I just saw some incredibly rare— Oh. I was going to say clownfish, but you two have those beat. 
A shell collecting vacationer in Florida comes across a damsel in distress during a late night beach walk and she of course draws him into intrigue way over his head. Before he knows it he's stumbled across a corpse and gotten involved in a murder investigation, as the damsel seems less and less like she's in distress as opposed to causing it for others. Author Richard Powell was known for the wit he mixed into his mysteries, and Shell Game is heavy on the repartee—if light on actual mystery. This Dell edition appeared in 1951 and the fun cover art is by Robert Stanley.
 He lives in a fetid swamp, has terrible grooming habits, and zero career prospects. But at least he listens to me. 
David V. Reed’s, aka David Vern’s The Thing That Made Love was originally published in Mammoth Detective in 1943 as The Metal Monster Murders. The first paperback version appeared in 1946 as I Thought I’d Die, and the above version from New York City’s Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation, which marketed digest sized paperbacks under the imprint Uni-Book, hit stores in 1951 with Robert Stanley cover art. What you get here is a man blamed for murder, but who claims the slayings were the work of a metal swamp monster. The women die battered, but with ecstatic facial expressions. Which raises the question—what exactly is happening to them? You can read a review of the book here. Update: We learned that Stanley's cover art also appeared in 1952 on Florenz Branch's Whipping Room, for Intimate Novels. Often these cover reworks are clumsy, but we think this makeover is actually pretty good. Not as good as the original, but close. 
 As your decorator, I recommend putting the rug over there for a splash of color, and the clock over here to remind you that you’re basically just worm food. 
Carter Dickson was the pseudonym of John Dickson Carr, one of the most prolific authors of the pulp and post-pulp periods, as well as what is known as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. He published novels from 1930 to 1972, and also wrote radio scripts and worked in television and movies. 1958’s The Skeleton in the Clock is not one of his most appreciated books, but we love the Robert Stanley cover art. By the way, there’s literally a skeleton grandfather clock in this book, which prompted us to wonder if such a thing existed in real life. After much searching, the answer is no, apparently, but we did remember there was a coffin clock with a skeleton inside in the midnight movie classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Time is fleeting indeed. 
 Um, what exactly did you mean when you said your boyfriend was a big dumb ape? 
We love this cover for Fredric Brown’s 1949 thriller The Dead Ringer, with art by Robert Stanley. Brown wrote about 250 books, including The Fabulous Clipjoint. This one includes the same protagonists as Clipjoint, Ed Hunter and Uncle Ambrose, sticking close to Am’s circus roots (he was a carny pitchman before he became an amateur sleuth) as they try to solve a series of slayings plaguing a traveling carnival. This one may be worth a read solely for the bizarre fact that a chimp gets murdered. How many mysteries can say that?
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1919—Zapata Is Killed
In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata's revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day. 1925—Great Gatsby Is Published
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner's Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald's best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure. 1968—Martin Luther King Buried
American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King's funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. 1953—Jomo Kenyatta Convicted
In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation's British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya's first prime minister, and still later its first president. 1974—Hank Aaron Becomes Home Run King
Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth's 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame.
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