Bantam 779 (1950)

Title : The Case of the Unhappy Angels (Six Silver Handles)
Author : Geoffrey Homes
Cover art : uncredited

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N. Y. : Bantam, 1950. [Pseud. Daniel Mainwaring]. Anon. cover design. Originally issued as : Six Silver Handles. Bantam edition published, April 1950. Creepy cover art with gloomy atmosphere; ambiguous reaction of the two women; distorted body proportions and posture, along with claw-like left hand on seated woman. The two women's rather ordinary/masculine features belie the cover blurb: "Two lying beauties play a dangerous game." In fact, the seated woman downright creeps me out : her head is much too large, is positioned too far to the right and seems to float in mid-air with no connection to the headless [?] upper torso dressed in purple.

Bantam 109 (1947)

Title : Blood from a Stone
Author : Ruth Sawtell Wallis
Cover art : uncredited

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Pocket 6043 (5th printing, 1960)

Title : The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse
Author : Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover art : uncredited

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The cover art for Pocket 6043 is done in the 'Charles' style, but no artist is credited. A shapely blonde wearing exotic dancer garb seems to be sitting on some kind of wall. Or is she suspended in mid-air? BTW love all that red on the cover! Anyway, the evidence suggests that Fan-Dancer’s Horse has been rather well served by vintage cover art; a glance at LibraryThing and ABEBooks reveals at least six pb editions which appeared during the (more or less) classic years of 1940-1968, all with pretty tasty cover designs. The most direct comparison is of course the somewhat more risqué Pocket first printing (no. 886) of 1952. In this version cover art legend Earl Bergey depicts in most tantalizing fashion a naked brunette wearing only red high-heeled shoes hiding behind a fan.

Quote of the month

"Columnists need obsessions, even addictions. We simply couldn’t keep turning out 900 words on a regular schedule if we weren’t allowed to indulge ourselves every now and then. We recognize that readers don’t necessarily share our cravings, but occasionally we are compelled to ask for your tolerance. Sometimes the only way to make a deadline is to ingest our literary drug of choice and report on the experience. If you read Booklist, you know what I’m talking about. My friend Michael Cart has Freddy the Pig, and I have pulp-paperback cover art."
-- Bill Ott, "Confessions of a Pulp Junkie," Booklist, v105 n5 (Nov. 1, 2008), p. 80.