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There were many editions of Peter Cheyney’s Dark Bahama released. We’ve already looked at three. Above is another, a Harlequin-Pan edition from 1956, which caught our eye because of the hats. Harlequin and Pan collaborated on only about a dozen books. It was veteran Harlequin illustrator Paul Anna Soik who got the cover nod. Click here, here, and here to see more of his work.
Who never says when? Probably women, if Peter Cheyney’s franchise detective Slim Callaghan’s bafflement over them is any indication here in his sixth outing in the Callaghan series. We think his feelings are adequately conveyed by this: Women, he thought, were extremely difficult propositions. When they were beautiful they were even more difficult. A natural process, he supposed. It’s played for laughs, because Callaghan can handle any situation with men but is often thrown for a loop when interacting with women.
After a tough case has concluded he decides to vacation and drink. And as will happen in fiction, trouble comes right to his hotel when he’s asked to recover a stolen corona, or crown, for its rightful owner, only to find that the person who asked him to acquire this valuable item is not who she claimed to be. All of it seems to revolve around an unhappy marriage and a battle over who will come away with what communal property, but when murder results Callaghan realizes there’s more than just martial animus behind it all.
Throughout, he opines about beautiful women, which is a case of him pondering his own addiction:
She asked, “Are all your clients as beautiful? It must be very interesting being a private detective.”
Callaghan said: “It is sometimes. We haven’t had an ugly client for years. Plain women seldom get into trouble.”
We don’t think that’s true, but we never have to find out in this book because all four women caught up in this scenario are attractive, even the one who’s “kind of ugly,” and Callaghan wants them all. This bit is Cheyney, we assume, having fun with a convention of the detective genre, being almost meta, in current parlance, by having his main character comment on the absurdity of his unlikely circumstances. Might there be there some external power throwing all these beauties in front of him? Yes—the author.
Callaghan has to unravel a mystery in which various characters are cleverly maneuvering to achieve their ends. He sorts out the moving pieces and, with the help of his partner Windemere Nikolls and secretary Effie Thompson, plays the various parties against each other through deceptions of his own, and sometimes outright lies. It’s very interesting how he alone decides who will be punished for their crimes, though everyone involved has broken some law or other. We suppose he’s a big picture guy. He just wants to catch the trophy fish.
Even though Cheyney wrote most of his books before the end of World War II and his style falls on the more orthodox side in terms of plot construction and levels of action, his writing is involving for modern readers, and often humorous. He was considered a genius within the crime fiction form and remains respected. Our edition of They Never Say When carries a copyright of 1957, but the book was originally published in 1944. As far as the brilliant and beautiful art goes, it isn’t credited but we don’t think there’s a doubt it’s by John Rose. Check here for a comparison.
If you have to go, do it in relative comfort, as demonstrated by this Dutch cover for the Al Wheeler mystery Meisjes op zicht, which means “girls on sight,” and is a translation of the 1957 novel No Law Against Angels, known in the U.S. as The Body. The art is Dutch fave J.H. Moriën, who based his art on that of Barye Phillips, directly below. We have many links for those of you with time to kill, and the willingness to kill it with us. First, click here, here, and here for Moriën at his best. That’s mandatory. Then click here, here, here, and here to see more curled up (or semi-curled) corpses. And finally, we have a couple of dead body collections that include a curled up unfortunate or two here and here. We just thought of this theme today in a flash. Does it mean we’re morbid? Don’t answer that. Below are more examples, with the last showing the approved step-by-step process of curling up and dying.
Peter Cheyney, master of ironically offhand book titles, originally published It Couldn’t Matter Less in 1941, with this Collins hardback edition coming in 1963 wrapped by a dust jacket painted by John Pisani. It’s fifth in Cheyney’s Slim Callaghan series, and sees the London private eye asked by torch singer Doria Varette to find her missing artist boyfriend Lionel, who’s fallen in with a drug using crowd. Callaghan is the archetypal ladykiller, with the archetypal lovely secretary—Effie Thompson—pining for him as he impresses his way through archetypically hot clients, while in archetypal fashion drinking like a longshoreman, smoking like a smelter, and deploying a “Japanese wrist lock” or other such secret maneuver whenever the need arises. Do all the pro forma elements mean the book isn’t fun or interesting? No, it’s still a good read, and written well enough too, but we have a feeling it all presents a bit fresher a few entries earlier. Cheyney wrote some great books, so we may try one of the first Callaghan offerings down the line.
The 1960 Fontana edition of Peter Cheyney’s Dark Bahama, with its unlucky man being mauled by a shark, is one of the craziest mid-century paperback covers you’ll see. By contrast, the earlier 1957 edition above from Pan Books goes a bit more traditional. It was painted by Henry Fox, easily recognizable thanks to his unique signature at lower left. The book is unique too. Feel free to read the earlier write-up to find out how.
Above: interesting perspective and wonderful execution from artist Fred Irvin for Avon Publications’ 1957 paperback edition of Peter Cheyney’s 1944 novel Dark Street Murders, aka The Dark Street. Other sites have this cover as unattributed, but we’re sure it’s Irvin. His signature is dim, but visible. We grabbed one from another piece of his for confirmation.
Italian illustrator Sandro Symeoni signed this 1959 Ace Books cover for Peter Cheyney’s He Walked in her Sleep just “Sym,” but however he marks his work, we’d know it at first glance. For years we thought he was a movie poster and record sleeve artist only, then we suddenly started finding his paperback covers. All are brilliant. Oh, and speaking of brilliant, this is an awesome title for a thriller. It was originally published in 1946 as part of the Cheyney collection He Walked in Her Sleep and Other Stories, but Ace got hold of it and typeset it to novel length. More from Cheyney and Syemoni soon.
We’re circling back to Peter Cheyney’s novel Dark Bahama to show you a couple of Spanish covers from Ediciones G.P. These came in 1953 and 1958 respectively and are, sadly, uncredited. And the bad news keeps coming—there’s no hurricane in the novel, therefore no sharkicane. Sorry. You can read about the book here.
As soon as we saw this cover for Peter Cheyney’s 1950 novel Dark Bahama we had to read the book. We had to find out if this was a literal illustration. And yep, a guy gets eaten by a shark. The artist here, John L. Baker, painting this for Fontana’s 1960 edition, must have really enjoyed creating something different from the usual gun toting studs and chain smoking femmes fatales. The story is different too. In a tale set on the fictional Bahamian island of Dark Bahama, Cheyney creates an array of Afro-Bahamian characters, filling roles from fishermen to police officials, and, surprisingly, writes them with something nearing respect. The addition of a mysterious Belgian character makes for another fun spot of diversity.
The protagonist is Julian Isles, a British detective hired to locate a globetrotting ingenue and rescue her from Dark Bahama before her partying and dubious associations permanently embarrass her family. Isles immediately walks into a murder scene, is suspected by the local cops, begins to think his client has lied to him, and sets about defying orders and expectations to get to the bottom of it all. Getting to the bottom involves working with the aforementioned Belgian cipher, Ernest Guelvada, a tough, romantic, eloquent, and ruthless operative of vague provenance. We think he’s one of the best characters we’ve come across in mid-century literature. Just listen to this guy:
“I am delighted to meet you. I am more than delighted to bring a little excitement into your—what is the word—prosaic existence. Yes, goddam it, you will agree with me that there is nothing like a couple of murders to stir the blood of a police commissioner at three-thirty in the morning.”
And:
“You think so? You lie. More than that, my friend, you love her. That I know. When you speak of her I see the look in your eye. I have discovered your secret. I will tell you something else. I also love her. I, Guelvada, who loves every woman in the world, love her at least as much as the other few million.”
And:
“When I go into action, my friend, I like a lot of room and a lot of space. Like great armies I must have room to develop. Like great fleets I must have space to maneuver. You understand? It is for this reason that I do not wish this island to be cluttered up with non-essential women, and at the moment our beautiful Miss Lyon is non-essential. Therefore, she will stay in Miami.”
To us, that sounds like a writer having a very good time with an off-the-wall character. Guelvada’s reasons for turning up change Dark Bahama from a mystery to an espionage tale, but we won’t reveal the details. We suggest reading it yourself. Cheyney is famous for his Lemmy Caution series, which began back in 1935, but we think he’s better here fifteen years later—a better stylist and a better conceptualizer, who’s produced a generally better read than we think he was capable of back when he started out. The story is engaging, the femme fatale is fascinating, the secondary characters ring true, the bizarre Ernest Guelvada keeps reader interest high, and the island backdrop adds atmosphere and spice. With Dark Bahama Cheyney gave us more than our money’s worth.
Below: seven more examples of vintage paperbacks using the Eiffel Tower on their covers. You can add these to the collection of twenty-two we put together a few years back.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the U.S., Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leases the Teapot Dome petroleum reserves in Wyoming to an oil company. When Fall’s standard of living suddenly improves, it becomes clear he has accepted bribes in exchange for the lease. The subsequent investigation leads to his imprisonment, making him the first member of a presidential cabinet to serve jail time.
