Paperback 1143: Popular Library 137 (PBO 1948)

    She only had one more dodge left. One more, and then the struggle for life was out of her. "Our song. Wait! I have it here—" She floundered across to a turntable, began shuffling through records with a furtive haste. One dropped, broke; another, a third; she didn't even stop to look at them. 

    She found one, fitted it on, set the needle arm. Then she turned to face him, at last gasp. Already more dead than alive. He had already killed her, all but her body. Life wasn't worth this price, anyway.

Paperback 1142: Popular Library 431 (1st ptg, 1952)

Though there was agony expressed in the posture, there was also the grace and grandeur of finality. The mouth, as they uncovered it, would never say foolish, child-like things again; it had grown up into death. It was the equal now of the mouths of Aristotle and Spinoza.

• Pretty classic stuff here—from the highly regarded suspense / crime writer so prolific his pseudonyms had pseudonyms, to the sensational paranoid title, to the panicked sideglance of our barefoot bridge walker. This book is the broken, bruised, beating heart of the vintage paperback era.
• Book is warped and well read, but tight and complete. The collector in me likes a fine copy, but the pulp enthusiast in me loves a book in distress.
• I really want to capitalize "has" and put a comma in that "1000."
• I see your "Thriller" and raise you to "SUPER-THRILLER"!

• Mostly dull, but I like the way the left margin follows the contours of the moon.
• Whoa. "1000" has become "a THOUSAND"! This *is* super-thrilling!
• Everything in red is balderdash. Fantastic, turgid, red balderdash.

I don't know what my lips said, but my heart said to him, it's human not to be able to bear knowing when you are to die.

• It's effectively creepy, combining puke colors and swirly, dizzying effects with a Joker-faced floating lady-head, a blot-like specter, and some dude re-enacting the dance from the "Thriller" video in a fun house hall of mirrors.
• William Irish = Cornell Woolrich = kind of a big deal. This book has some mild smashing at the lower spine, and someone's had at those pupils with a pencil, but it's square and solid and pretty rare (see range of prices here).
• Readers-Choice Library is an uncommon imprint. You may remember their work from this fabulous, pot-smoke-smothered cover a while back.

• "I said TOWARD HIM!"
• The writing here is not good.
• "Here, take this ... sharp-pointed bore!" (!?)
• "His victim's button...?" I really don't understand the premise of this write-up.

"Tom, what's wrong?" she said anxiously. "You look all white and disturbed! You haven't—you haven't lost your position, have you?" She caught him by the sleeve and stared up into his face.