This is a striking cover for Frank Gruber’s 1967 thriller Gesucht Wird… D.D., or “Wanted… D.D.” If you want attention on a newsstand this bright red collage style art is a way to do it. Unfortunately, we don’t know who put this together for West German publishers Martin Kelter and have no way of finding out. We do know about Gruber, though. He was a stalwart pulp author born in 1904 in Minnesota. He began publishing in his mid-twenties and was well received in magazines such as Argosy, Weird Tales, and Black Mask. This particular book is a translation of his 1961 novel Twenty Plus Two, in which an investigator searches for a woman—named Doris Delaney—who’s been missing for twenty-two years. It was made into a movie of the same name. You can be sure we’ll check that out.
