We’ve run across some low characters in paperback art, but these guys are the lowest. Faced with danger they’ve grabbed the nearest woman to use as a shield. Women in mid-century fiction have it rough—they’re interrupted while skinny-dipping, carried off against their will, manhandled, spied on, tied up, and more. They have their victories too, thankfully—put a gun in their hands and they start dropping men like two-foot putts. Well, good thing femmes fatales are so tough, because they’ll need to be hard enough to stop bullets to get out of these jams. We shared another cover in the same style back in 2009 and you can see that nice effort here.
Femmes fatales are tough but are they bulletproof?
John Spain, Wallace Reyburn, R.T.M.Scott, Edgar Wallace, Vernon Warren, Max Carter, Richard Sale, Ernest Dudley, Francis Carco, Ben Benson, Raymond Chandler, Jacques Agop-Abri, F. Van Wyck Mason, Sax Rohmer, Karl Kramer, Dan Gregory, Lionel White, Ferguson Findley, cover art, literature, cover collection