Vintage Pulp

February 11 2022

A TASTE SENSATION

Modesty Blaise is mmm mmm good.

A Taste for Death was an entry in Peter O’Donnell’s famed Modesty Blaise series, about an international criminal-turned-black ops death dealer. The previous three books featured Robert McGinnis fronts on the paperback editions, which you can see here, here, and here, but by the time this one appeared the paperback industry was shifting toward cheaper art—first photographic covers, and eventually computer graphics. The relentless pursuit of increased profits has cost society a lot, from beautiful urban cinemas to livable wages to entire forested mountaintops. Traditional paperback art isn’t that important when measured against all the other losses, but it still represents the extinction of something enriching and fun. A Taste for Death was first published in 1969. This edition came from Fawcett Crest in 1972, with uncredited art which we consider to be the last painting of merit to appear on an English language Modesty Blaise paperback. More McGinnis pieces appeared on foreign editions, and we’ll share those later. Also, some of the photo covers in the series are nice, and we may share those too.

The book brings back a villain Blaise and her sidekick Willie Garvin thought they had defeated in installment one, the nasty international jewel thief Gabriel, who this time is teamed up with a gorilla of a man named Simon Delicata in a plot to wrest the ancient and priceless Garamantes jewels from an Algerian archaeological dig. They’ve kidnapped Garvin’s girlfriend Dinah Pilgrim, who can find precious metals and gems using dowsing rods and heightened senses. It’s a typically imaginative set-up from O’Donnell, who we mentioned before creates villains fit for a James Bond movie. They’re never just bad guys—they’re freaks of criminality and terrifying physical specimens. Blaise and Garvin always have their hands full, and that’s especially true in A Taste for Death, which features not only the wily Gabriel and the beast Delicata, but a master fencer named Wenczel eager to pincushion the heroes. We suggest you get a taste for Modesty Blaise. As fanciful spy capers go, her adventures usually hit the spot.

Algeria, Fawcett Crest, Peter O'Donnell, Modesty Blaise, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 24 2022

PARADISE FOUND

What a perfect day. It's days like this that make me glad we invested early in cryptocurrency and retired before thirty.

Above is a Charles Binger cover for John D. MacDonald’s 1959 novel The Beach Girls. At this point, we know anything he wrote pre-Travis McGee is going to be good, and even the McGee books are mostly entertaining despite the main character’s off-putting social judgments. The Beach Girls is a bit different from other MacDonalds we’ve read, largely written in a sort of round robin style where the final words of each chapter lead mid-sentence into the first words of the next, but with a change in first person point-of-view. The book cycles through numerous characters via this interesting trick before settling into standard third person narration for the finish.

The story deals with the inhabitants of a marina in fictional Elihu Beach, Florida, some of whom are friends, others enemies, some longtime residents, others newcomers, and how jealousy and resentment lead to a shocking act of violence. From the earliest pages you know this event is coming, and as the book wears on you become pretty sure who’s going to be the unfortunate though deserving recipient, and who’s going to be the giver. The main question becomes whether MacDonald will subvert these expectations and throw readers a curve. We’ll just say it wasn’t a predictable tale.

The only thing we don’t get is why it’s called The Beach Girls. The nearby beach area of the town is mentioned only a few times, no scenes are set there, and the book has an ensemble cast, with the women no more important than the men. There are groups of tourist women that pop up here and there, but they don’t impact the story at all. Oh well. The title is a mystery, but an unimportant one. We’ll get back to MacDonald a bit later. These 1950s efforts of his have been very worthwhile.

Florida, Fawcett Crest, Gold Medal Books, John D. MacDonald, Charles Binger, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

August 27 2020

SEXUAL REVOLUTION

I have to admit, you're pretty good in the sack for a capitalist running dog lackey.

Heat, guns, passion, and politics. What more do you need for an adventure novel? Paul Edmondson’s 1959 potboiler The Little Revolution is set on the fictional island of Caimanera, which is of course modeled after Cuba, where American wife Fidessa Broughton gets tangled up in a rebellion via her choice of a bedroom partner, even as her husband goes astray with a local woman, and a military captain’s daughter rebels as well, in that way all teenagers do. The excellent art on this is by the eclectic Mitchell Hooks. We discussed his singular genius in detail a while back.

Cuba, Fawcett Crest, Crest Books, Paul Edmondson, Mitchell Hooks, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

July 26 2018

HELL TO THE CHIEF

Your partners all voted and decided to demote you to this shallow grave.

When the cat’s away the mice will play, so the saying goes, and in Kill the Boss Good-By San Pietro crime kingpin Tom Fell goes missing for a month and a subordinate tries to take over his operation. When Fell reappears a power struggle ensues, while the top bosses in L.A. decide to wait and see who will come out on top. What makes the book a bit different is the reason Fell was missing—he was in a mental institution recovering from a breakdown with the aid of electroshock treatments. The new brain-scrambled Fell is calmer than the old Fell, but is he cured or is he worse? His enemies soon find out. Interesting hard boiled stuff from Peter Rabe, driven primarily by dialogue mixed with simple descriptive passages revealing a—dare we say it?—strong Hemingway influence. 1956 with cover art by Barye Phillips.

Fawcett Crest, Gold Medal Books, Peter Rabe, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 26 2018

BAD TIMING

365 days in the year and just her luck she's in Greyton today.

There’s never an untimely moment for a great cover. This unusual piece fronts Mark McShane’s Untimely Ripped, which as you can surely guess involves a Jack the Ripper type killer. The first victim in the fictional English village of Greyton is a prostitute, and the terror is due to the fact that in a place so small there are no strangers, which means the killer is someone known and loved—the priest, the constable, who knows? It gets worse. Not only is the killer seemingly someone they all know, but the first murder begins to look non-random when the victim’s sister is killed and mutilated. Then a third victim suffers the same fate. We won’t tell you more. Well, we’ll tell you this: McShane uses the fifth longest word in the English language: praetertranssubstantiationalistically. What does it mean? Hah. Whatever he wants, because he made it up. The cover art on this Crest paperback is uncredited, which is a crime all its own.

England, Crest Books, Fawcett Crest, Mark McShane, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

June 19

1953—The Rosenbergs Are Executed

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage related to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet spies, are executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York.

June 18

1928—Earhart Crosses Atlantic Ocean

American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, riding as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stutz and maintained by Lou Gordon. Earhart would four years later go on to complete a trans-Atlantic flight as a pilot, leaving from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland, accomplishing the feat solo without a co-pilot or mechanic.

June 17

1939—Eugen Weidmann Is Guillotined

In France, Eugen Weidmann is guillotined in the city of Versailles outside Saint-Pierre Prison for the crime of murder. He is the last person to be publicly beheaded in France, however executions by guillotine continue away from the public until September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to receive the grisly punishment.

June 17

1972—Watergate Burglars Caught

In Washington, D.C., five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. The botched burglary was an attempt by members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition. The resulting scandal ultimately leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and also results in the indictment and conviction of several administration officials.

June 16

1961—Rudolph Nureyev Defects from Soviet Union

Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The western press reported that it was his love for Chilean heiress Clara Saint that triggered the event, but in reality Nuryev had been touring Europe with the Kirov Ballet and defected in order to avoid punishment for his continual refusal to abide by rules imposed upon the tour by Moscow.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

TO DIE FOR