• Death comes for Richie and Joanie and the whole Arnold's gang!
• Two great surprise faces. And then blond dude. Blond dude is like "Hey ... I'm also here ... what's up? Nice knife."
• My two favorite things about this cover are That Hand and That Ribbon.
• Margaret Millar was the wife of Kenneth Millar, aka Ross Macdonald. Ross and I both have English Ph.D.s from Michigan. Go Blue.

• It's kinda busy. Swoosh, swish, plummet!
• "How many mysteries rate THIS kind of rave?" Uh, six! No, eight! Thirty-four! ... what do you mean, "rhetorical"?
• Gonna need a fact-check on "Not one in a hundred." Sounds kinda made-up.

"Are you still here?"
"Yes."
"Want a drink?"
"Not now, thanks."
"It's rum," she said.

• I have always been fascinated by highly localized storms. Here, we see a downpour located exclusively in the butt region of a woman whose name, I gather, is Angel (!)
• Yes ... a "luscious lass." A very luscious lass. Lass is definitely what I think when I look at this cover. "Nice lass!" I think to myself. McGinnis had an amazing talent for drawing ... lasses. 
• The wraparound hand! To go with the wraparound gaze! It's an exquisite, if uneventful, cover painting.

• That's a rather defensive opening claim. I saw the cover. I didn't have doubts. Easy, copywriter.
• Don't tell Venus she took second. Trust me, when goddesses lose beauty contests, *very* bad things happen.
• Mavis Seidlitz thrillers!? I don't think I own any of these. Color me intrigued.

"So what happens after the bomb, huh? Tell me that?"

• We have a winner in the Stupidest Title Of All Time contest.
• Seriously, what is this contrafactive pseudo-poetic nonsense? Is it a famous quotation? Who says this? In what context would groaning make things better??? "Had I but groaned ... I'd've gotten the role in that zombie movie for sure"? 
• Back to groaning—it's not even sexual? Moaning would be sexual? I am just befuddled by whatever it is this title is trying to do.
• I keep imagining this as "Had I Butt-Groaned..."
• To this cover's credit—she is amazing. McGinnis-gorgeous. I don't know if that's a lab coat or a towel or what that she holding, or why she's in a haunted house, but I don't much care.
• The stripes on her underwear nicely complement those on the settee. I am 100% serious with that last comment.

• Copy in red is not half-bad. Copy in black is empty confusing blather.
• "Naturally."
• You know a story's going to be exciting when the main character is named "Larry Baker." 

We reached the banquette a couple of minutes later, mainly because Boris zigzagged all the way across the floor of the restaurant. "Ladies!" He bowed deeply and bashed his forehead on a passing trolley of hors d'oeuvres.