ROGUE MALE

Someone needs to learn about personal boundaries.

This is an Italian edition of Ellery Queen’s 1951 novel The Origin of Evil, published by Garzanti as L’origine del male in 1953. Queen was a pseudonym inhabited by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, who wrote about forty novels together. That’s quite a run, but the main reason for this share is the stunning cover art. We aren’t actually sure who needs to learn boundaries, since it’s the woman with the gun. Maybe she’s the villain. We haven’t read the book. Possibly the art doesn’t even relate directly to the narrative. That was common. In any case, it was painted by Giovanni Benvenuti, and is yet another example of his special capabilities.

Let me go! I can save her! I just need a good nurse, a set of woodworking tools, and a shoehorn!


We already shared a 1952 Pocket Books cover for Ellery Queen’s The Dutch Shoe Mystery, but this 1959 Pocket Books art by Jerry Allison goes a different direction, so we have a different, equally silly take on it. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends didn’t get the joke last time, we suppose because they aren’t old enough to know the same useless things we do, so we’ll offer the reminder that a traditional Dutch shoe is made of wood and known as a clog. The Dutch Shoe Mystery features no clog that needs removal, just a ruptured gall bladder. Before the doctor can perform the operation, the patient, a millionairess who founded the hospital, is strangled with a piece of wire. Suspects: a few family members and the immediate medical staff. The “Dutch” in the title comes from the name of the hospital: Dutch Memorial. The “shoe” comes from the standard footwear of surgeons: white canvas moccasins which are the sole (oops) clue. Third in the Ellery Queen series, the authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee (aka Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky) basically update the classic locked room mystery by staging it in a medical facility. Good? Well, they published more than thirty subsequent Queen capers, so take that for what it’s worth. 

Theories anyone? I mean, the x-ray told us there was a clog in the intestine, but it isn't even chewed. It's just weird.

Above: a cover for Ellery Queen’s The Dutch Shoe Mystery originally published in 1931, with this Pocket paperback appearing in 1952. This is one of those deals where the author and lead character were presented to audiences as the same person, but the secret got out pretty quickly that Ellery Queen was actually two guys named Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, but those were pseudonyms too. Their real names were Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. Maybe they wrote mysteries because they loved to mindfuck people. And the title, as well, is a bit of a misdirection—the book has nothing to do with Dutch shoes at all.

Ottoman, Ottoman, Otto mighty mighty good man.

Assorted Turkish language pulps published by the pop culture magazine Hayat, circa 1960s and early 1970s. The authors are, top to bottom, Allison L. Burks, Gerald de Jean, William McGivern, Ngaio Marsh, William Irish, Mignon G. Eberhart, Nora Roberts, Ellery Queen (aka Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, aka Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky), John Dickson Carr, and Robert Bloch. 

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1920—League of Nations Holds First Session

The first assembly of the League of Nations, the multi-governmental organization formed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The League begins to fall apart less than fifteen years later when Germany withdraws. By the onset of World War II it is clear that the League has failed completely.

1959—Clutter Murders Take Place

Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith. The events would be used by author Truman Capote for his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, which is considered a pioneering work of true crime writing. The book is later adapted into a film starring Robert Blake.

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

Robert McGinnis cover art for Basil Heatter’s 1963 novel Virgin Cay.
We've come across cover art by Jean des Vignes exactly once over the years. It was on this Dell edition of Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Untitled cover art from Rotterdam based publisher De Vrije Pers for Spelen op het strand by Johnnie Roberts.
Italian artist Carlo Jacono worked in both comics and paperbacks. He painted this cover for Adam Knight's La ragazza che scappa.

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