VERY WELL RED

Need to spice up your book cover? Try a splash of color.

Over haar lijk was published in 1960 by Rotterdam based Uitgeversmij, and it’s a Dutch edition of Richard S. Prather’s 1959 thriller Over Her Dead Body. This caught our eye because the cover has the same art that was used on Steve Brackeen’s Baby Moll, except with the background changed to an eye-catching blood red. Uitgeversmij often took U.S. covers and colored them. It sometimes led to cheap looking results, but occasionally, such as here and with Henry Kane’s Snatch an Eye (which we showed you a while back), they lucked into beautiful results. We’ve seen this cover around, but we suspect it came from Flickr, so thanks to original uploader on this.

Netherlands, Rotterdam, Uitgeversmij, Richard S. Prather, Steve Brackeen, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

July 5 2018

MOLL SHOOTING

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a worse girl with a gun.

Steve Brackeen’s, aka John Farris’s, Baby Moll tells the tale of a former mob tough guy who’s dragged away from the normal life he’s built for himself to help his former boss survive the attentions of an assassin. It seems that years ago the bossman torched a building and a young girl survived with burns. The girl has grown up and is presumably behind the murder attempts. But the book isn’t really focused on her, which makes Barye Phillips’ excellent cover art and the accompanying tagline a bit misleading. The various women spend little time on the page. Baby Moll is really about how the protagonist goes about his investigation. There’s a good amount of action and an assortment of interesting characters, but we wouldn’t go so far as to call the book either exceptional or well written. It’s okay. It goes in the South Florida crime bin, so the setting might be enough to put it over for many readers.

Florida, Crest Books, Steve Brackeen, John Farris, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 20

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

April 19

1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail

American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy.

April 19

1971—Manson Sentenced to Death

In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.

April 18

1923—Yankee Stadium Opens

In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.

April 17

1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched

A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.