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Showing posts with label Leslie Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leslie Ford. Show all posts

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Paperback 776: Ill Met By Moonlight / Leslie Ford (Dell 6)

Paperback 776: Dell 6 (1st ptg, 1943)

Title: Ill Met By Moonlight
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Yours for: $10

Dell6

Best things about this cover:

  • Ew, that red. Seems like the title should be "The Band-Aid Was Insufficient."
  • I keep reading this "I'll Met …" and thinking "that's not grammar."
  • Surely one of the dullest of Dell covers. In their defense, it is a Very early Dell, and I'm not sure they knew exactly what the hell they were doing yet.
  • I don't think the eyeball-in-the-keyhole was ever this big again. Love it.


Dell6bc

Best things about this back cover:

  • Cursive? Really? Could you not afford a font-ist? Or a second color?
  • Those are some gigantic sailboats.
  • Who is this "Jo" guy? "Jo Village," "Jo Dock" … aw crap, that's a "T"! $&%^ing cursive!


Page 123~

"And then when he came to, days later, he was married to her. I suppose he did the decent thing."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Friday, February 12, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 47


Title
: Reno Rendezvous (Popular 60-2119, 1st ptg, 1967)
Author: Leslie Ford (last one, I swear)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7


  • Kinky.
  • I like how the accidental abrasions on her mouth make her look like a vampire.
  • "Thinking about divorce? ... Think Again!" — that should have been the tagline.
  • From the neck (*just* below the rope) down, this woman is hot.
  • I wish this artist got credit. I'd like to know the name behind this painter with a predilection for neck-snapping. I'll just call him "Snappy." See also...


And the back of "Reno Rendezvous" ...


  • "A flying visit to Reno.." — why does that phrasing sound off?
  • I wouldn't worry about the "shadow of a noose." I'd worry about the actual noose. That one. There. Around your neck.

Page 123~

She raised her eyes to his, round and blue as delft saucers.

Not so much sexy as comically cartoonish. "You remind me of this anime I saw once..."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 46


Title: Murder is the Pay-Off (Popular Library 50-426, 1st ptg, 1960)
Author: Leslie Ford (she can't be stopped)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $7


  • "Here, hold this dead man against your chin. It'll stop the swelling."
  • She looks like a lady in a commercial for some cleanser that gets blood stains out of your carpet.
  • The horrific palette on Ms. Ford's books continues unabated.
  • "Wallop" is a funny word.


  • I'm not sure you want to suggest that the reader has to be "dragged along."
  • "GUARANTEE!" — I can't wait to see what this "full reading satisfaction" is all about.

Page 123~

Swede Carlson's thick hand planted itself quickly in the dark on Gus Blake's knee.

Mmm, I smell full reading satisfaction up ahead ...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Monday, February 8, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 45


Title
: The Philadelphia Murder Story (Popular Library SP408, 1960)
Author: Leslie Ford (redefining the word "prolific")
Cover artist: uncredited. Criminally uncredited.

Yours for: $7

  • This guy better be a zombie or involved in some kind of performance art because there is no way I'm buying the guy died that way, with his (ghastly) hand lightly fondling a lily pad.
  • The hand-flower-face triad is just genius. Absurd, horrific genius. It does not, however, scream "Philadelphia" to me.
  • "OK, we got some ideas for the title of your new book. You remember that famous movie, 'The Philadelphia Story?' Yeah, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, right. So we were thinking: 'The Philadelphia ... MURDER ... Story.' Huh? Huh? Whaddya think? Catchy, right? P.S. the cover will feature the undead playing hide-and-seek."
  • Talk about giving up — they've not only replicated the front cover painting, but the *front cover blurb* as well.
  • Again ... you're saying one thing and I'm seeing another. Didn't see Philadelphia ... not seeing this "web" thing you speak of either.

Page 123~

The people at the Post all had them on their desks for paper weights.


I'm just gonna let that hang there. You can decide for yourself what "them" are.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Sunday, February 7, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 44

Title: False to Any Man (Bantam 80, 2nd ptg, 1947)
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: "Kohs"

Yours for: $8


  • When the Bride of Frankenstein sleeps, she dreams of the facades of junior high schools.
  • I sort of like the torn cover effect, but the rest — it's both nonsensical and ugly. The color scheme alone is a nightmare.
  • "Colonel Primrose" already sounds like someone I'd like to kick in the balls.

  • If only this book were about a "gimlet-eyed" cat.
  • Always sad when the original cover is light years better, design-wise, than the paperback.

Page 123~

"He sure am smart, ain' he?" William said, with quite genuine enthusiasm.

In case you were still entertaining some idea of actually reading anything written by this woman...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Saturday, February 6, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 43

Sorry for the lag between new books ... stupid job with its stupid starting up again ...

Title: Ill Met By Moonlight
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $6


  • Ill Met by Moths!
  • Love *everything* about this picture, from the sickly green tint, to the lady's expression (looking at me for help! Sorry lady, you're on your own!), to that hand — remarkably still, creepily calm for being attached to someone who just unleashed serious moth fury.
  • Is this how our "lovely vixen" (uh, a stretch) toys with (one too many) men? "Here, this way, just come into my boudoir ... I know it's dark, just wait, let me get the light and BOOM! Moths moths moths! Ha ha ha, you should see the look on your face... you still wanna do it?"

  • Wait, is this the same "she?" Because it's going to be hard for her to be "found dead" *and* to be toying with men. Unless ... she comes back from the dead as a specter doomed to haunt her former lovers with an unshakable retinue of moths ... yes, that sounds good.

Page 123~

"However, we may be a bit forrarder."


forrarder, adv. chiefly British : further ahead

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Friday, January 29, 2010

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 42

Title: Road to Folly (Popular Library 60-2158, 1st thus, [1967])
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $3


  • Least sexy threesome of all time
  • "Me and my pet hourglass and this photo of my mom gotta stay under this net on account of the tse-tses..."
  • "Good telling!" — "I say, old chap, good telling, pip pip etc."



  • Pardon my French, but Jennifer Reid sounds like a fucking idiot who deserves whatever she gets.

Page 123~

"She's better this morning, thanks, Boston. How are you?"
"Po'ly, miss, thank you. You lookin' mighty peaked yo'self, Miss Jenny."

Yeah, I don't want to read this.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
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